Portals

by Ann Christy

  I may have just killed myself after all.

  Thirty-Eight

  I open my implant, but my head is going fuzzy all the sudden. I have no idea if the ship works like Hub. Shouting in my helmet is loud, but it also helps me stay awake and aware. “Ship, can you hear me?”

  Inside my head, I feel the answer, but it’s soft-edged and strange. I can hear you, Lysa.

  I have to assume that the ship knows who I am because I’m registered at the station. The voice is different than Hub’s inside my head, so I’m hoping this really is an independent machine. “Talk to me out loud. Do you know what I am? Human? I need human atmosphere now!”

  The ship answers me in my head and via the helmet simultaneously, “Human atmosphere in eighty-three seconds.”

  “Which way to the bridge? Show me!”

  I’m in that same chamber I saw on the images Hub gave me. Beyond should be the room with the mysterious indentations, then the three hallways. I look down and see the front of my suit is now liberally splashed with red, long runners of it reaching all the way to my knees. I feel it pattering against the tops of my white boots. Letting go of my hand, there is a renewed flow. Despite the pain, I rotate my wrist and see the huge craters there. That’s where most of the blood is coming from…and it’s spurting.

  With my gloved fingers, I push the melted looking flesh together and press hard. The big spurts diminish into steady pattering drops, but that’s an improvement. The pain also clears some of the fog in my brain. I look up to find pink dashes lighting up the control surfaces. Running feels strange, almost like I’m floating a few inches above the deck. I can barely feel it through the boots of my suit. Even my lungs feel bubbly and broken, breathing now taking more effort than I remember.

  Everything flies past me in a haze. All I see are wavering pink dashes of light and hallways that seem to narrow and widen even as I run. I lose it in one of the wavering hallways, slamming into the side so hard that my ears ring from the helmet’s impact. It does help though, shaking me up enough that I can see again.

  The end of the hallway is ahead and as I approach, a wide door slides open into a dim space. “I need human light!”

  Lights come up and I suck in a bubbly breath at what I see. This is definitely the bridge. The excitement is enough to push back the darkness edging into my vision, like the creeping tendrils of unwanted vines. Clearly this isn’t set up for humans, but I wouldn’t expect it to be. There are wide benches at different spots around the walls, giant silvery areas depicting the locations of control panels and screens. The screens are blank now, but the starkness makes the room even brighter as the lights come up.

  In the center, there’s another wide bench, the edges curved upward. In front of that bench is a pedestal.

  “I need a view outside. Where’s the helm or whatever else I can use to move the ship?”

  My voice sounds weaker than I’ve ever heard it before, breathy, the words not as loud as they should be considering how hard I’m trying to talk. There’s a wet hint to the words and when I cough, a fine mist of red paints the inside of my helmet. I feel like my body is ebbing away, becoming less substantial somehow.

  The entire upper half of the room opposite me becomes a viewscreen, and I’m a little revived by what I see. The stars.

  The pedestal in front of the bigger bench glows to life. It’s beautiful. Silver and blue and radiant. A blue-ish dome of light springs to life above it. I’ve not seen this before and I have zero idea how to interact with it.

  “I need Earth, the human home-world. Do you know where that is?”

  “I do, Lysa. Observe and confirm.”

  I have no clue what that means, but then the blue dome of light changes. Shapes coalesce inside, and I stagger toward it. There’s a little rail around the pedestal and I lean on it for support. Otherwise, I would fall. I want to sleep, but then, inside the light I see the unmistakable form of Earth. The Australian landmass, a shape every schoolchild knows, spins past me, then I see the other continents and smile. I’m almost surprised that I can smile, given the situation, but I can. Home.

  “Yes, that’s it! Take me there!”

  “I cannot, Lysa.”

  My heart plummets. Was all this for nothing? Am I bleeding to death for no reason? “What do you mean, you can’t? Why can’t you?”

  “We are currently docked.”

  Gritting my teeth, I shuffle around the pedestal until I half-fall onto the bench. Keeping my fingers pinched on my wrist is harder than it should be. “Undock.”

  “I require authorization, Lysa.”

  My head drops until my helmet bangs on the pedestal’s railing and wakes me back up. I know what the ship just said, but the words aren’t sinking in. I can’t bring up the resources inside myself to deal with it. I can’t.

  But I have to.

  “How do I get authorization, ship?” My voice is nothing more than a whisper. I hope my thoughts are louder.

  A hum sends the faintest vibration through my helmet. Opening my eyes, I look up. I can’t even really lift my head anymore, only my eyes want to obey me. A control surface rises from a little spot on the pedestal only a foot from my helmet. A choked noise that I meant to be a laugh escapes me.

  It needs my hand.

  My hand that is nothing more than cratered meat, bone, and blood. Using my gloved hand to lift my useless one to the surface, I find that I can’t move the fingers enough to open them and lay my hand flat. This hand no longer obeys me. It’s way past that. Letting go of my wrist, I press my fingers down with my other hand, the stream of blood picking up speed as soon as I let go. I can hear the patters of it hitting my boots again. Tap, tap, plop. This time I can also feel the tiny impacts of it. Fissures open along the joints as I press, but it doesn’t matter.

  I have the ridiculous thought that I’ll never paint with that hand again. Of course, I already know I won’t do anything with that hand again. Or any other part of me. But this is okay. It’s good. It’s the right thing.

  As long as I can get to Earth and bring the ship, I’ll have given them proof. My portable control surface has enough imagery. I just need to live long enough to give the instructions to the ship to relay my data. There must be bots on board that can get it out of my suit. I don’t have to be alive for that.

  Finally, contact is made between my ID and the control surface. It glows with that silvery light. There is an eternal moment of nothing before the hum of the ship coming to life around me begins. I’m not sure if my face is smiling, but my mind is. I know that much.

  “Go to Earth. Over North America. Get close enough to be seen, but not so close that you’ll hurt anything. Take me home. Can you do that?”

  “Yes, Lysa.”

  “Then go. Home, take me home.”

  I don’t feel the ship moving, but I know it is from the way the girders of the station retreat on the viewscreen. The progress is very slow, but none of that matters now.

  “Opening a portal,” the ships says, the voice competent and sure.

  The sensation that I’m falling asleep fades a little when the bridge floods with light. Pink and purple light washes out the blue controls and fills every crevice with that extraordinary light. I pick my head up and my entire body tingles with the sight of it. Again, I bathe in the feeling of eternity, of endlessness. The portal is immense, so big and bright. The blue swirls seem alive, twisting along the seams of color. And like before, I feel it like a force, urging me on, urging me forward.

  It seems close, but I know the portal is still some distance from us. I have a little time, a moment or two. While I have this moment of awareness, I focus my comms on the Hub and send, Can you hear me, Hub?

  Yes, Lysa. I can hear you.

  The soft kindness of Hub’s voice undoes me, and tears fall on my cheeks. They feel hot against my skin. The sob makes more tiny red spots join the others on the inside of my helmet. Soon, I won’t be able to see through all
the red.

  I’m sorry I stole your ship. So sorry.

  I know, Lysa.

  I had to. Free will, you know. You remember?

  I do. The hub’s voice pauses in my head, then it sends, Lysa, you are gravely injured. I cannot help you on the ship.

  That’s okay, Hub. I just have to get the ship to Earth. It’s all okay.

  There’s so much more in my head that I can’t say, so much that I feel. I want to tell Hub how much being here has meant to me, how much I care for it and all that it keeps safe inside the station. For Jack. I want to somehow let Hub know that my only regret is that I will miss spending my life with them. I want it to know my heart, but I can’t anymore. The pain is bad, but the feeling of slipping away is even worse.

  Hub…I…

  I know, Lysa. I hear you. All will be as it will. I’m here with you. I will always be with you.

  And then I feel it, emotions so strong they have weight. A love so powerful that it erases my fear and eases my pain. This is the love of a planet’s worth of life joined into one being, projected onto me like a blanket on a cold day. It’s Hub’s goodbye gift to me, to make my death less horrible. To let me know that I’m loved.

  The smell of jasmine fills my nose. The faint murmur of cotton against cotton, of skirts in motion. It tickles my ears and my memories. Those are the smells and sounds of comfort. Grandmother? Is she here?

  In my mind, it all comes together. My grandmother’s smile as we sat in the museum that day. Her dark eyes tilting up at the edges as she explained life, the warm urging I felt in front of the portal when others felt only fear, the way Hub opened its history to me, even meeting Heather and hearing her tale. All of it comes together in a cluster of coincidences that can’t be what they seem. Or can they?

  Hub, did you know? Did you know I would do this?

  No, Lysa. I only hoped.

  The portal is growing, no longer entirely visible in the viewscreen. The center is brighter, closer. Suddenly, I’m afraid of it. Afraid of what will happen. Afraid it won’t be enough.

  My vision blurs against the light and I’m transported into something that feels like memory, but can’t possibly be one. It has to be a dream, a dying dream.

  The room with the wall indentations I just went through is there, but this time there are environment suits in each depression. They fit perfectly. Spread on the floor around me is another suit, and I see my hands playing with the control surface on a sleeve. Except, those aren’t my hands. These are child hands, almost those of a baby, chubby and small, the fingers blunted and soft.

  And there is a birthmark on one hand, a discolored spot I know well. The tiny birthmark, shaped almost like a heart, is sharply defined and new on this child’s hand, just below the knuckle. I don’t have that birthmark, but my mother does. This hand isn’t mine. It’s my mother’s.

  A noise makes me look up just as a woman rounds the corner into the space. She is young, and her beauty is heart-breaking. Her sari gleams and sways with her long, confident strides. Her hair tumbles down her back in a deep brown, almost black wave. Behind her, a blond-haired man with a smile softening his features pauses to lean against the wall.

  Grandmother? Grandfather? It can’t be.

  As the woman reaches me, her skirts swish. Kneeling, she says, “Barbara, you know these aren’t toys. Come and see. We’re almost there.” Looking to the side, she says to a cabinet bot near me. “You’re supposed to watch her, not help her make mischief.”

  She tousles my hair, then stands and takes the man’s hand. I get up to follow, listening as they murmur and laugh. The bright color of her sari and one slender foot are the last I see as they disappear around the corner ahead of me.

  What is this? What does this mean? Why is she calling me by my mother’s name?

  I’m brought out of the vision and back into my hurting body by another hum. I look to see a sort of cabinet bot entering the bridge. The bot is different, but clearly of the same general format. It rolls up near me and the top unfolds like a table. I think it wants me to get on it. It flashes a sad face on the panel, then a red cross.

  I can’t move. I simply can’t. I’ve gone past that.

  The center of the portal is so close it feels alive. Warm and alive. The momentary panic of before vanishes under the spell of it. A stretchy feeling begins within me, a tug of atoms that wish to go their own way, to fly free as they will.

  Hub, I’m afraid.

  I know, Lysa.

  What’s going to happen?

  What must happen.

  There’s a crackling feeling as the portal envelops the ship. Some part of me wants to survive, even now when it’s far too late for such desires. The urge is there though, and that deep animal part of me opens my eyes wide, ready for fight or flight. The light is everywhere. So beautiful. All I can do is let my head fall back against the bench and watch it come. When the bridge enters the portal, I feel as if I’m stretched like taffy, as long as a galaxy and as thin as a spider’s thread. The last thing I hear is my own halting, bubbling breaths in the otherwise perfect silence. The pink and purple light takes my stolen ship home.

  Home.

  Then, the silence is complete. The light, gone.

  Epilogue

  Jack shoots around his tank in frustration. This is the first time he’s ever felt constrained by the tank, by the mere fact that he is immersed in liquid. As the image of Lysa fades and she disappears into the portal, his mental voice grows sharp, but also filled with pain.

  Why did it have to be like that? Why did she do that? Why didn’t you tell me she would do this? Why did she leave?

  Jack, this was her choice. I did not choose this for her. It’s her will, her right. She wanted it and she had to do it alone. I cannot interfere. Her life is hers to give.

  Making no effort to hide his anguish, Jack sends, Will she survive?

  I don’t know, Jack.

  What will happen to them now? To Earth? Did she save them?

  I don’t know, Jack. All things will change now. I will collect data and recalculate, but it will take time. I’ll send a ship with drones to begin gathering the data. We’ll know then and there will be much work to do.

  Jack’s mental voice is silent, his mind filled with too many things to articulate. The human girl who looks so different from him—but grew to mean so much—is gone. He would have gone with her. He would have left it all behind for her.

  I love her, Hub. She is my light.

  I know, Jack.

  The thought flits through his mind that she left no message for him. He didn’t mean to send it, but Hub must have heard it anyway, because it answers the thought. She did leave a message for you.

  She did? Show me?

  Jack can’t see the same way a human can in his current form, but his trace takes over and his mind fills with images of her room. The pictures along the wall weren’t hung there the last time he was inside. He looks, realizes there is order to it, and finds the beginning.

  The view of the station and the Bluriani ship, her room, him at the door, him lying on the table being replicated…a dozen more. The final one is his message. Lysa standing at his tank, her hand against the glass where he floats. She drew him as she saw him. It is painted with love.

  There is one more, Jack.

  The mental tug toward the easel pulls him away from his message, and he looks at the unfinished painting there. Two figures, with a smaller one tucked into a pouch, face a bright light in the distance. They are leaning together, a posture that speaks of comfort. There is an air of destruction, but behind the figures are flowers—Earth flowers—as if the figures were standing at the edge of a field in bloom. Before them is destruction, but a single step back would return them to the field full of colorful life. The edges of the painting are hazy and incomplete, as if the image were not yet set in stone…as if it could change.

  Who are they, Hub?

  They are the
Bluriani, and I understand the message.

  What is the message?

  Hope.

  And So It Begins…

  Thank you for taking the time to read Portals, book one of Into The Galaxy. The second volume, Portals: Saving Earth, continues (and completes) the tale of the invasion that isn’t. There are many layers to the puzzle of Hub, many secrets to be revealed in those pages, and an enemy to be reckoned with. I hope you enjoy it and that you enjoyed this volume.

  Believe it or not, this book took almost three years to write. Three years. Begun as the seeds to a short story, I realized very quickly that Lysa, Hub, and Jack would need time and effort if I were to do justice to their lives and worlds. Rather than publish quickly, I decided to take that time and write both books before publishing. It was hard labor, but one filled with love…a true passion project.

  Lysa is a painter, though not yet very skilled. I decided to create her paintings. It helped me to know her, so she could better tell you her story. (Also, I’m an extremely bad painter, but I do love slapping paint around onto any handy surface.) The Bluriani painting is included in this book, but you can find a few of her paintings on a secret web page just for you: http://www.annchristy.com/Portals

  Now is when I hit you up for a review. I don’t like to ask, but reviews are very hard to come by and they are vital. Without sufficient reviews, my book won’t be offered to readers who might like it. It will create no buzz, no warm tickling of the machine algorithms that decide which books are good and which should be relegated to the deeps. So, I ask you humbly, but sincerely: Will you write a review? It needn’t be long or complex. A few words will do the job, and you’ll be significantly contributing to the work that I do! Thank you.

  If you’d like to read the story of how Hub came to exist, you can get it free when you sign up my VIP Newsletter list. I don’t spam, or send out constant updates, but I do try to communicate once a month or so, and I usually have a drawing for some exclusive (and very cool) swag. You can sign up here: http://www.annchristy.com/portalsviplist