Indeed, Pearson was typing faster than a speeding Ferrari. He turned his head toward Alexa while continuing to produce pages of characters. “I can imagine,” said Alexa. A look of trepidation crossed his face. Does he think I would out him? “The Captain is pretty super.”
Edith glanced at Alexa. “Pearson is showing me an equation that might explain why we have not been able to jump away from Sirius.” She turned to the screen and leaned forward to look at some part of it more closely.
“A man in the gallery,” said Alexa, “mentioned he’d noticed the ship remained in the same spot after the recent jumps.”
Edith sighed resignedly. “Thus, my hope that none of the passengers noticed our predicament is for naught.”
“A small question.” Alexa switched from one foot to the other. “Who is doing the wormhole jumps? I thought they said in the police office the wormhole pilot died.”
Edith straightened, turned in her chair and looked squarely at Alexa with a face including guilt and concern. Pearson stood up and also faced Alexa. The two of them glanced at each other. Edith, with her facial features, asked Pearson if something would be okay. When Pearson nodded, she took a big breath and said, “I am also a wormhole pilot.”
With that, Edith’s assumption of command in the police office became more understandable. “That’s great news,” said Alexa. “You saved us from the pirates.”
“I am retired,” the woman said. “And it’s looking as if I’ve lost my touch. Thus, perhaps it’s not great news.”
Pearson put in, “I verified every action of yours has been correct.”
“Still, we remain here.” She said to Alexa, “By the way, it is important that no one knows it is me doing the jumps. If my dear friend was murdered because he might jump the ship out of danger, the captain wants those bad people to not know who next to target.”
“Thus you wondered why I showed up here,” said Alexa. “I hope I can put your mind at ease. I am not with whomever hurt your friend, the pilot. In fact, I was attacked in my room.”
“It appeared a fight happened there,” said Pearson.
“It was you who slipped my room key under the door?”
“Yes. I was informed you took refuge in that room.”
In the most casual manner she could muster, Alexa took the opportunity to inquire, “Have you two known each other long?”
Edith absentmindedly replied, “What? No, not long. We met officially a day after the cruiser departed Adalans.” She glanced at him and continued, sounding like the social butterfly she’d seemed on the Adalans space station. “Here was this tall man with funny hair, fabulous teeth and an odd gate. I stepped into his path and introduced myself.” Then Mrs. Holmes-Fong, the wormhole pilot, took over. “Pearson, is this correct?” She pointed to a spot in the equation. “It appears we are jumping each time.” Pearson affirmed with a nod. The woman drew her eyebrows together at the equation and pursed her lips.
She turned her gaze to Alexa. “Shortly, I recognized him as the man who was with you, when the two of you kindly witnessed the wedding on the Adalans space station. He explained his radical change in appearance with a story about trying to not be noticed by a prior customer of his, one with which the last deal did not go well.” Pearson laughed. “Come to think of it, I never saw him with you, dear,” Edith said. “Though when he came to me concerned you might not be treated fairly by the ship’s sometimes overzealous security officer, it did not seem out of character.”
Alexa reflexively glanced at Pearson.
Edith continued, “During these days, it’s become clear how knowledgeable Pearson is about the math and science behind wormhole travel. And when he saved so many people in the fight against the pirates, well I must say,” she said with great flourish, “I have been consistently impressed with this man.”
Pearson moved his head side to side in low-key embarrassment. Perhaps he needed to change the subject because he turned to Alexa and asked, “Who attacked you?”
“In my room?” She pulled her gaze away from Edith. “An orange cart-bot. The same color as the bot’s hand in the bogus video of me supposedly tampering with the pilot’s food.”
“There was no robot in your room when I arrived.”
“Donny turned it off before we left,” she responded. “It must have been able to turn itself on, or some other bot or some human did so.” Alexa decided to ask about wormhole jumps. She said to Edith, “The experience of going into a wormhole is fascinating.”
“Cruise ships try to jump when most everyone is asleep,” replied the woman. “I understand some people prefer to schedule their bedtime with a jump, since it puts them right into slumber. Is that what happens?”
“Actually, it feels similar to the deepest point of meditation.”
“Well I can tell you, as the pilot, the experience is quite transcendental,” the woman said. “Which makes sense, because the pilot takes the ship into a state between two normal space-time geometry points.”
Alexa asked, “Could the jump ending here at Sirius have been a one-way jump point? Only in, no out jump?”
“We wondered, also,” said Edith. “One of Pearson’s equations looks to disprove that hypothesis. And as this equation shows, when I try to leave Sirius the jumps do happen. At the end, however, we have gone nowhere.”
“Did you intend to come here?”
“No, I wanted the jump to Earth’s solar system, which transit is the most familiar to me. We ended up here.”
The conversation having flowed to what Alexa truly wanted to know, she didn’t consider how odd her questions might sound in the current day and age. “How does a pilot take a ship through a wormhole? How does it work?”
Edith considered Alexa, as if her intelligence was questionable. “You seem a well-educated young woman.”
She’d exposed her ignorance of this century. Mental head slap. “There is a very good and long story behind why I don’t know this. I’d be happy to tell you all about it some time. But my intuition is screaming that time is something we don’t have.”
Edith glanced again at Pearson before launching into an explanation. “Holes, which are concentrated areas of what was originally called dark energy, generally have a default destination. A certain thought—a sound—in the pilot’s mind when in front of the hole takes the pilot and the ship to the destination. In a more technical explanation, the thought or sound resonates with the super strings of the quantum space.
“The pilot sits in a cabinet, which makes the ship intimate to the pilot, as close as his or her clothes. Since it’s the same substance as the ship’s hull, that helps carry the whole ship through with the pilot. The pilot having the intention, even of the default destination, makes the transit more smooth.”
Alexa asked, “So you had an intention for the Earth wormhole, and we ended up here. How can that happen?”
“The hole we entered is classified as unstable and unpredictable.” Edith turned to check a dial on the board in front of her, moved a knob and continued. “Most pilots would bypass it, especially with passengers aboard. I would think even pirates would avoid it, though it occurs to me they attacked us where and when they did because that hole was available to them if something went wrong. Whatever the case, its unpredictability might account for coming here instead of the Sol solar system.”
Alexa asked, “Could Sirius be the default destination for this wormhole?”
“Perhaps, though it hasn’t always been the case. I remember stories about this particular wild card sending ships all over the place. No stories of ships not being able to jump somewhere else later. Therefore, when we ended up at Sirius instead of Sol, I was not particularly worried. That we cannot seem to leave Sirius is strange. Not something I’ve ever heard of.”
“Why didn’t the pirates follow us?”
“Perhaps they tried. I jumped our ship again quickly in an attempt to evade them. It’s lucky they haven’t shown up.”
“Thus, we jumped to an u
nplanned location and cannot seem to leave.”
“That sums it up,” said Edith, settling her shoulders.
Alexa debated with the tip of her tongue slightly out her lips, and said, “I may have an idea on why both things happened.”
Edith blinked a couple of times. “Pray tell.”
“Another long story, though I’ll try to keep it succinct. I have with me an item I’ve been told is a homing device to a crystal. The reason I have it with me is part of the longer story I mentioned. The name of the crystal, where this device always tries to go, is Ceres.” Alexa waited, to give the woman time to notice the pronunciation. It took about one second.
“Sounds similar to Sirius, though I believe Ceres was a Roman goddess for agriculture,” said Edith.
“Scotland has a town named Ceres, and that country has a legend about the crystal,” said Alexa.
“Do you think this item you have is powerful enough to waylay a cruiser?”
Alexa shrugged. “I honestly don’t know. This item, and the actions it inspires in others, has consistently been a surprise. It was entrusted to me to deliver to someone else, which I am trying to accomplish. And going to Earth is part of that effort. Please believe me that it is absolutely my desire to help you transport us all to the Sol system.”
A red light next to the knob Edith had adjusted began to blink. She glanced at it and scowled. “Someone scanned this wormhole. Pilots do that before entering, to avoid collisions.”
“Okay,” said Alexa. “This is what I think might help.” Antsy would be the word for how she felt. She wanted to move. At once. “Perhaps you and me, together, could make this little homing device take us to Ceres on Earth, instead of Sirius. The last time I saw Ceres, it was on Earth. Perhaps your intention to go to Earth and me seeing Ceres in my mind, would get us to it.”
Edith considered the proposal for what seemed hours. A sense of impending danger beat in Alexa’s chest.
Edith glanced at Pearson, again asking for his opinion, and he said, “I cannot see how it could hurt. And it might make the difference.”
Alexa’s intuition proved itself. The snout of a big, ugly wreck of a ship began to exit the wormhole.
“Do you by chance have the item with you?” snapped Mrs. Holmes-Fong, the wormhole pilot. Alexa nodded yes. The woman hit a button on the console. “Captain, take us into position to go through the wormhole, and we will do it this time.”
“In two minutes,” barked the voice on the other end of the intercom.
Edith turned to Pearson. “Would you handle what you can?” He nodded while taking a seat at the console.
On her way to the cabinet, Edith took Alexa’s hand. Chimes sounded in the distance, announcing to the ship to prepare for a wormhole jump.
The cabinet seemed similar to a 1960s white hard-vinyl egg-shaped chair, but bigger. Inside the egg, there was enough room for Edith to sit in the curved chair and Alexa to kneel at her feet. The pilot shut and secured the hatch and clicked on a soft, low light. In the womb, she settled herself, closed her eyes, drew a deep breath and let it out.
Alexa quietly extracted the crystal from her bra. Cradling it, she reached up and laid her hands onto Edith’s lap. The woman opened her eyes at Alexa’s touch and raised an eyebrow at the sight of their fate being tied to such a small object. But then she took Alexa’s hands in her own. Alexa shut her eyes, waited a moment and began meditating.
One minute later a voice came inside the egg, speaking low. “We will be at the jump point in, counting: Five, four.” A screech of metal on metal intruded. “Three, two.” An impact faintly rippled through the cabinet. “One. Now.”
How Mrs. Holmes-Fong reacted, Alexa didn’t ask. She simply tried to do her job. As she sank into whatever silence was available to her, she remembered Ceres, sitting there on its cushion beside Brahmaji the last time she saw him and it. Her own consciousness began whirling. Down the cone her awareness slid, slowly, slowly, toward infinity.
Chapter 29
“Do you think we went through?” asked Alexa.
After listening to sounds from the ship, Edith mimed a hopeful anxiety and reached to toggle open the cabinet.
As Alexa fell backwards out of the box, she yelled, “Pearson, did we make it?”
“Yes,” he shouted, and both women cheered. Then he followed with, “But the pirate ship must have been touching ours because they were dragged along.”
Alexa felt herself pulled up from the floor by strong hands and pushed toward the exit. “Go, now, run,” commanded Pearson. “You too, Madam. Run as fast as you can. They will target the Jump Room first.”
The ship jinked down and to the left, which threw Alexa backward. “What’s that?” she shouted, climbing up off the floor.
Pearson yanked open the door and pushed her through. “The captain is probably trying a maneuver to give us time. Go.”
While running, Alexa reached into her shirt and deposited the crystal beside her heart. Edith puffed behind her and Pearson brought up the rear, making sure no one straggled. Over the bridge, and through the corridor, to the door to safety they ran.
When they exited the green door, Pearson slammed the safety latch to separate the two parts of the cruiser. Barely in time because the front of the ship where they’d been, received a direct hit from the pirates. The blast threw all three to the floor.
“Turn in there,” gasped Edith as she climbed onto her knees. “Safety-pods in the gallery.”
Alexa hauled open the door, to the din of barking dogs of all sizes. Owners were climbing up from the floor, where they’d collapsed either from the recent hit or the almost unannounced wormhole jump or the evasive maneuver. Their canines were yap, yap, yapping at them to hurry. A few humans had tabbed open a pod or two along the wall across from the window, urging other owners and dogs to pile in.
“Wait,” said Pearson, catching Alexa and turning her to him. “You said you were attacked by a robot.” He swept her up in his arms. “No one has seen you yet.” He tucked her face toward his chest, while Edith stripped off her own jacket, threw it over Alexa’s head and led them into the gallery. Alexa snuck a quick peek, to identify only one robot engaged with its doggy charges. It might work.
Edith stopped at a pod. “We’ll leave the floor space to the dogs.” She entered a closet and lifted her foot to climb.
“Madam, allow me,” said Pearson and stepped aside for her to back out. He reached in, and on an upper tier of benches deposited Alexa, who found her balance. Pearson then lifted up the top five chairs in a stack beside the door, leaving one in place, and hefted the five high onto another stack before bounding up to find his own seat. Edith reentered, closed the door and engaged the lock, which caused oxygen to begin pouring in.
Alexa drew a breath.
As Edith settled onto the chair beside the door, she commented, “Though I’ve been almost bored in space many times, I have to say this journey has been rather too fascinating.”
In agreement the cruiser jinked again, which threw the lady and her chair to the right. With everything in the closet tightly packed, the three people reaching out with arms and legs worked to steady the contents. Nothing tumbled, either human or furniture. Barks and howls sounded from adjoining rooms, though no sharp yelps indicating an unhappy squashed dog.
“I concur,” said Pearson. Pings and louder hits prompted them to pause, waiting for a larger ripple of impact through the ship. But none came. “It is possible we might have a savior, hopefully in the guise of a well-armed man-o-war because I put out an SOS at sight of the pirate ship.”
Another set of pings from debris hitting the hull sounded. Shortly after that, a voice sounding remarkably calm considering the circumstances announced over the public address system, “If you are in a safe environment, please remain there. If not, please find a safety pod. Most of the ship is secure for the moment and assistance looks to be almost here. Still, the danger is not over.”
Pearson pursed his lips and sighed
deeply, a totally human expression. “I should go help.”
“Young man,” remarked Edith, raising one eyebrow, “there is no requirement for you to put yourself in harm’s way at every opportunity.” Such a look from her grandfather would have stopped Alexa in her tracks.
“Madam, my training is useful in these type of situations. It would be lacking on my part to not offer my services. Plus I can let them know you are safe.” He ended with an earnest gaze at her.
Edith seemed to find Pearson’s response a bit much. “Very well,” the woman said after a moment. “Do please be careful and return when you can. Three quick knocks, then two, then one, will let us know it’s you.” She stood up to allow Pearson to climb down, unlock the door, scoot out and quickly shut it behind him.
Alexa and Edith sat without talking for a bit, monitoring the sequence of shrapnel hitting the hull. When the ship settled after another maneuver, Edith commented, as if picking up on a long-held conversation, “Something’s up with him, though I can’t quite put my finger on it.”
Alexa caught her lips between her teeth.
When neither sound nor sudden move by the ship happened for almost five minutes, Edith whispered, “I would love a whiskey and soda.”
Chuckling, Alexa stretched her arms wide to brace the benches behind her and reached her legs across to the stack on the opposite side of the closet. “I’d go for an entire bar of chocolate. Dark chocolate.”
“Oh yes,” agreed the woman. “If you like chocolate. I make a marvelous sour cream chocolate cake, a recipe from my mother.”
“Wonder if the kitchen would let us do that. I’d be happy to help,” said Alexa.
“That cake, with a cup of good strong tea.”
“Or a smoothie. With frozen bananas and fresh raspberries and strawberries. And double vanilla ice cream.” The other woman groaned. Something other than dire circumstances, yeah, good.
Seeking Sirius Page 17
