Chapter 10.
“It amazes me that these people can restore youth!” said Amon to his two closest friends.
Broc had emerged from the “regen” chamber only a few minutes ahead of Nahm. Both men still retained their grey hair and beards, but the wrinkles in their faces, which before had dominated their appearance were now much smaller, almost invisible. Both men stood more erect now than before the process had begun. Their general countenance seemed to be more youthful. Even their eyes seemed to be brighter.
Evander smiled as he stood to greet the two men. “It pleases me to see you looking so well! As many times as I’ve seen the process, I’m always amazed to see such remarkable transformations.” He stepped forward and put his hands on each man’s shoulder.
“As I said to you before, your youth has not been restored. It is your general health that has been improved.”
“But I feel so much better! As when I was a young man!” Nahm smiled, stretching his arms out to his side, inhaling deeply. Turning to Amon, he added. “I feel as good now as you look!” Then to Broc, “You too look better, even if you are still old.”
The four men laughed good naturedly. Evander stepped backed from the three men.
“Come, my friends. Let me show you around the ship. Perhaps you would like to learn more about us and our culture.” Evander led them out of the room and across the hall to a bank of doors. Evander pressed a button next to one of the doors, which opened to reveal a small room. As the men stepped into the small space, Nahm asked:
“I know that this ship, as you call it, is very large. How many people are here?”
“Many thousands are on board this ship. But we have some which are much smaller.” Evander responded.
“You mean like the one which brought us here?”
“Yes. There are several like that one. But there are also some which are somewhat larger. The one you came here in can only accommodate six people at a time. Those are used exclusively for missions like the ones which brought us together. They are designed to operate primarily outside a planet’s atmosphere.”
“I don’t understand this word ‘atmosphere’“, said Broc.
“Atmosphere is the air we breathe.” The three men looked confused. Evander smiled reassuringly.
“I know much of what I say you don’t understand. But be assured; as we explore this ship things will become much more clear. Come. Let’s return to the flight deck, the place where you arrived on the Brighid. There I’ll explain more completely about atmosphere.”
The four men remained standing in the small space as Evander spoke. After only a minute the door opened again. They could see that they were now in a different location than the one they had just left. There in front of them, across a wide hallway was another door, this one of transparent glass, flanked on both sides by windows. The four stepped out into the hall.
“I remember this place.” said Broc. “But how did we get here? I remember we walked along a hallway before. This time we went into that small room and then turned around, and now we’re are here. How is this possible?”
“Before, you were new here.” Evander began, “We thought it best that you become comfortable here before being introduced to our technology. That’s why we had you do something familiar, like walking, to help you feel comfortable.
“The regen chamber that you both experienced is part of our technology which needs to be explained.”
“Wait!” said Amon. “Do you mean to say that your people do not need to walk? I don’t understand.”
“Certainly we all walk. But usually only for short distances. Do you remember the first room you entered when you arrived? That room is called the ‘orientation’ room. When you left that room, though you didn’t notice, you were relocated to a place several hundred yards away.
“To you it seemed that you had only crossed the hall to the ‘regen’ waiting room. But in fact, you had travelled a much greater distance.”
“This is not possible!” shouted Broc. “I did not walk such a distance as you describe!”
“And that is why you were allowed to walk when you first left the hangar deck . . . so that you would not be disoriented, as you are now. Come. Let’s go back out onto the hangar deck. I’ll explain more as we walk. First, and this is very important for each of you to remember. See that green line on the hangar deck floor?” Evander pointed to the line directly under the sphere that had brought Nahm to the Brighid.
“Yes,” offered Nahm. “I remember seeing it change to green from yellow when Leona and I first arrived.”
“Good!” said Evander. “There are a few other places on this ship where you’ll see that green line. In those places, as well as the hangar deck, it is vital that you not attempt to enter if the line is yellow. It has to do with ‘atmosphere, as I mentioned before.
“When the line is yellow it means that there is no air inside the room. Without air (or ‘atmosphere’) we cannot breathe. It’s like being under water.” The men nodded, still not completely understanding.
The door to the hangar deck opened as they approached. There before them sat the sphere that had brought Nahm just a few hours prior. Flanking it on both sides were other spheres. Flanking them and extending all along the walls were other craft varying in size and shape. The platform which had been there when the sphere arrived, had retracted back under the floor, revealing a short flight of six stairs. The four men descended and turned to the left at Evander’s direction. As they walked slowly past the row of spheres, Evander continued his explanation.
“Amon, you expressed concern about how we were able to move long distances on this ship without walking. What you observed is actually the most important part of our technology. We refer to it as ‘tele-porting,’ or ‘T.’
“The room we just left is called a ‘T’ chamber. When we step into such a room, we are moved to a different place on the ship. We say the name of the place we want to go and the chamber takes us there.”
“How is this possible?” said Amon. “I felt no movement.”
“A good question, my friend. You see, much of what we perceive as movement has to do with our senses. For example, as you jump off a ledge or a high place toward the ground below, your body feels lighter, your skin feels the movement of air across it, and particularly, your eyes see that you’re moving from one place to another. When you land on the ground, your body senses that you are no longer falling.
“However, if those senses are interrupted; if their sensitivity to movement is blocked, then you will not recognize that you are moving.
“When we enter into a “T” chamber, our senses are essentially blocked, so that we can move from one place to another without feeling the sensation of movement.
“Remember when you were on the shuttle on your way here? Remember the huge spiked object that you felt you were falling into? Had your eyes not seen it’s approach, you would never have known that you were moving.”
“I remember that,” said Nahm. “I felt like I was falling. My eyes told me this, but not my body. It was very strange. You are right. Had I not seen it, I would never have known.”
“That huge object you saw is called a ‘LINK.’ It’s a gigantic machine that has the capability to move us, in small shuttle craft or even whole ships like the Brighid, from one place in space to another place very far away, without us feeling that we have moved at all, or that much time has passed.”
“How is this done?” asked Broc.
“It is a process we call ‘Matrix Mapping and Transferral,’ or MMT. The LINKS refer to it as ‘Seeing,’ and before you ask, there is little more I can explain . . . because I simply don’t know. Long ago, when we first discovered the ‘LINKS.’ . . .”
“You mean you did not build that thing?”
“Oh, my . . . no. My people, as advanced as we think we are, cannot begin to do what the LINKS can do.”
“There are more of those things?”
“Oh, yes. Many thousands. Wh
en you came here, you experienced just two of them. You entered one and exited from another.”
The three men slowed to a stop, trying desperately to digest all this new information. Evander noticed their distress and decided to change the subject.
“Your understanding will come soon enough. For now, let’s take a short ride, shall we?”
Evander led the men toward one of the bird-like vehicles which had a short flight of stairs leading up into an opening in the side of the craft. To the right, as the men entered, was a long empty cylinder-shaped space large enough for a man to walk upright in. A row of web-like chairs lined each wall.
To the left was a short ladder attached to a platform. Evander gestured for them to climb the ladder, warning them to duck so they wouldn’t bump their heads on the low ceiling. The platform they stepped onto was what Evander called the ‘flight deck.’ To the left were three chairs, two facing a row of windows, and the third slightly higher and centered behind them. A fourth chair was located to the right, facing away from the windows, toward a bank of dials and switches.
Evander squeezed into the left forward-facing chair and gestured that Amon sit in the right one. Broc took the center seat and Nahm the one on the right. As soon as Nahm sat down the seat rotated to face forward.
Evander started pressing buttons and twisting knobs as he explained.
“This vehicle can do everything the spheres can do, but it can also do something which they cannot. Pretty soon you’ll see what I mean. I think you’ll enjoy it.”
Through the bank of windows they could see out onto the hangar deck. People who just moments before had been working on and around the other craft, were now all moving toward exits spaced around the deck. The now familiar lines on the floor were pulsing from green to yellow.
Inside their craft they could hear a faint whirring sound which increased in pitch until it was more of a soft squeal.
As soon as the lines on the floor outside stopped pulsing and turned yellow, their craft lifted off the floor and began moving forward, again following a yellow line. The line ended at what looked like a wall, which soon began to raise. It was not a wall, but a door, the same one they had entered through before.
Evander drew their attention to a rectangular green light on the console in front of him. It was marked with the letters ‘INS.’
“This little button is what makes this craft different from the spheres. You’ll understand what I mean in just a few moments.”
The craft moved forward and out through the hangar door. The brightness of the hangar deck was replaced by a field of pure black dotted with stars. Evander took hold of what looked like a small stick protruding vertically from the console immediately in front of him. He moved it slightly to the left, which caused the craft to bank in that direction as it moved outward, away from the Brighid.
Each of the men felt a slight increase in weight as the craft manoeuvred, pressing them lightly to the right. Then their weights returned to normal as the craft began moving in a straight line along the length of the giant mother ship.
“My friends, we’re going to take a short trip to a world, a planet, that we’re just beginning to explore, with thoughts to ‘seeding’ it, just as we did to your ‘earth.’”
He moved the stick to the right, causing the craft to bank right. They felt themselves being pressed lightly to the left. Again the craft stopped banking, this time pointing away from the mother ship, toward what looked like a small bluish dot surrounded by tiny white specks of light, filling the view before them.
Evander pressed the stick slightly forward. This time they felt that they were being pressed back into their seats. The view before them didn’t change. The light blue dot remained centered in their field of view. Evander pressed another button and the view disappeared, to be replaced by a view of the Brighid, shrinking in size as they watched.
“As you can see from this rear view, we’re moving away from the Brighid at a fairly rapid rate. You can tell we’re moving because you can see it, and feel it. Now, watch what happens when I press this green button.”
The color of the light pulsed from green to yellow, and then remained yellow. Immediately the sensation of movement stopped. They once again felt their normal weight. They were no longer being pressed back into their seats. Evander pressed a button on top of the stick.
As they watched, almost instantly the Brighid shrank to just a point of light, indistinguishable from the others which filled the screen. The view switched back, facing the direction they were travelling.
This time the bluish dot was rapidly growing. Very quickly they began to see changes in the color of the dot as it grew. Brownish green swatches began taking shape in the darkening blue. Greyish white wisps, like smoke, became visible, partially covering many of the swatches.
“That is what I saw when I left our world! Have we returned?” Nahm exclaimed.
“No. This is another world, very similar to yours, but as yet there are no people there. Before we take orbit around this planet, let me explain a bit about this button.
“Remember when it was green, you could sense movement. The weight of your bodies seemed to shift slightly as the craft turned. Then, when the light turned yellow, the sensation of movement stopped.”
“Yes. I remember those feelings when we were in the sphere. But they weren’t so strong then.” Amon replied.
“That’s because the system was operating in automatic mode. For purposes of demonstration, I operated the system manually so you could sense, so you could ‘feel’ the difference.
“That button controls what we call an “Inertia Nullification System,’ or INS. It has another name, too, which I’ll demonstrate when we descend into the planet’s atmosphere.
“This ship uses some of the technology used by the ‘LINKS.’ It isn’t designed to travel the great distances afforded to us by the ‘LINKS.’ But! This ship can do something which even the ‘LINKS’ can’t do. It can maneuver through a planet’s atmosphere without the need for Inertia Nullification.
“When the rectangular light turns back to green, a different system is in play. We also call it INS. But now, when the ship is in atmosphere, INS stands for Inertial Navigation System. It allows us to keep track of where we are, relative to a known point on the planet’s surface, just like it did when we were moving around the outside of the Brighid.
“Once we were clear of the Brighid, we began to move away, at first at a relatively slow rate, which you could feel. But if we were to stay in ‘green mode,’ it would take us several days to travel from the Brighid to the planet. When we switched to ‘yellow’ mode, the ship could travel very much faster without us feeling the increase in speed.”
“Then what is the difference between the two, what did you call them . . . ‘systems’?” asked Amon.
Evander was again pleasantly surprised to hear Amon ask such a question. It was further confirmation that Amon was indeed unique, significantly more intelligent than his peers. He smiled as he responded.
“It’s all very complicated. Much of it I don’t understand, myself. Let me just say that the ‘LINKS’ employ Inertia Nullification as well as MMT, or Matrix Mapping and Transferral, and probably other systems that are completely beyond our comprehension.”
The craft had decelerated and was beginning to settle into the planet’s atmosphere. They could feel buffeting as the wings of the craft began to bite into the air.
“We could still use Inertia Nullification here, if we wanted to. But then we wouldn’t feel what it’s like to fly like a bird. The ‘wings’ on this craft are similar in shape to those of birds. They allow us to manoeuvre in the atmosphere just as a bird does, except our wings don’t flap They remain stationary. Instead of moving the wings, we use what we call thrusters which push against the air and allow us to speed up, slow down and turn.”
Evander once again grasped the stick, this time in his left hand, as his right rested on the center console, index and middle fingers ma
nipulating two small spherical controls.
Amon sat quietly in his seat, closely observing all that Evander did and said. It was obvious that he was enjoying himself. His enthusiasm was affecting everyone. Broc and Nahm sat transfixed, wide-eyed, watching the spectacular view through the wind screen. Amon’s attention focused on Evander’s words. Here was a man who genuinely loved what he was doing.
“Sometimes we humans think we’re smarter than we really are. But for all our knowledge, for all our advanced technology, for all our supposed sophistication, we are still unable to replicate the magnificent simplicity which is found in nature. Sometimes, though, we come close.”
A wide smile came upon his face as he focused his attention through the window before him.
“Hold on my friends! Feel what it’s like to FLY!!”