IMAGINATION'S PLACE
FICTION
JOURNEY TO THE LIGHT
By; Speaker Gerald Polley
All rights reserved.
Chapter 18
They flew down to Florida first thing in the
morning, landed at the nearest airport to the Cape, and went in a
motorcade the rest of the way. People lined the roads wishing
them well.
"You're really getting the treatment!" their driver
remarked. "This is getting so commonplace now, people hardly notice a
ship going up. But a lot of excitement about you coming
through. Of course the stories about you raising the dead aren't
true, right?"
The children all giggled. "Of course not!"
Carol answered. "The next thing they'll have me walking on
water!"
Everybody laughed again. They got to the Cape and
got a good look at their ship as they were going out.
"It's not very big, mother!" her youngest daughter complained.
"Big enough!" Carol answered. "A lot bigger
than any airliner! I think it's still going to be an experience."
The girl nodded but still looked disappointed.
They waited for their turn and then went up the loading ramp. A
beautiful young woman greeted them. "Hi!" she piped. "I'm your
stewardess. Just follow me and I'll take you to your level."
She led them through tier after tier of what looked
like small alcoves with couches in them. Finally she came to a
stop. "Now," she said, "please line up according to your boarding
numbers. Oh, that baby is precious! He's so quiet!
Usually they're fussing and everything!"
Carol smiled. "He's very good!" she agreed. "As I'm a first time mother everything is new to me."
The young woman looked curiously at the girls.
"My husband's daughter," Carol explained "and we adopted this
one. Plenty of variety in our house!"
The girl smiled. "All set!" someone in the back cried.
"Good!" the stewardess answered. "Now, I'll
put the lady and the baby in her compartment first, and then I'll put
the others in."
"We wanna be with mother!" both girls cried out.
"Well, we don't have compartments that big, dear,"
the stewardess answered. "We can put in a special chamber for the
baby, but you really need your own couches."
"Don't give the lady a hard time!" Carol instructed.
"Tell you what," the stewardess put in, "why don't I
move your mother down one and put you two on either side? I can
open the panels so you'll be able to see each other. Almost as good as
being in the same one!"
"Don't go to all that trouble!" Carol insisted.
"Not that much!" the stewardess came back. She
quickly moved the chamber for the baby out of the first compartment and
put it in the next one, then settled the girls in, then, Carol.
"If you get sick," she explained "grab this mask.
The suction will automatically come on. The suction is always on
in the baby's chamber. If he should spit up it'll automatically draw it
away so he won't choke on it. We know what we're doing!"
"I'm sure you do!" Carol praised.
She disappeared and busied herself preparing
the others. Carol wondered just how many people were in this
ship. Had to be over a hundred.
"Good afternoon!" came a pleasant sounding
man's voice. "This is Daniel Earhart, your pilot. We're warming
everything up and we should depart right on schedule. Everybody's being
accommodated. It'll only take us ten minutes to reach
orbit. The hard part is reaching your ship segment and
disembarking you. But you should be in your quarters in less than
an hour. Never had a problem with this lady! She's the
first of her kind and she's already made over fifty flights!
We're really busy here. Lot of excitement going on. Sorry
there's no windows. We hope to have viewscreens in all
compartments in a short time, but it takes a while to get the
niceties. But we have a great selection of music, you can call up
almost anything on your speaker. Once and a while I'll cut in to
let you know how we're doing. Right now I just got the signal
that everybody's secure. I'm waitin' for a green light and we'll
get this show on the road. There we go! I can see the
lights coming on on the anti grav units around us. When you feel
like you're floating, you are! You'll be weighing less than
nothing. That's when I'll hit the boosters. We'll start
climbing. You probably won't feel anything. The unit adjusts as
fast as we accelerate. But you'll hear it. It sometimes scares
some people, but there's absolutely nothing to worry about. Now,
I'm going to be busy for a few minutes, so just relax and enjoy the
ride!"
Carol thought no matter how many times that man does
this, he's still thrilled every time he does! She began to feel
very odd. Her heart wanted to race, and she had to struggle
to keep it calm. She looked to the baby and was very glad they
made the sides of the chamber transparent. He was happily
kicking, didn't seem to be bothered at all. Then she heard them,
a low, steady rumble. She knew it was the boosters. She
knew they were climbing. The roar got louder but it seemed to be
further away at the same time. She thought that was
odd. Then it was quiet.
"Ladies and gentlemen," the pilot came on "we have
achieved orbit, cruising... Harry what's that? Jesus Christ! Full
thrust!"
Carol heard the engines come back on. She had
a feeling though she couldn't tell for sure, that the ship was making
rapid maneuvers. Finally it stopped.
"Sorry about that, ladies and gentlemen," the pilot came
back, "somebody apparently decided to lift from Europe at the same time
we did and forgot to notify anybody! Somebody's going to be out
of a job! We just had to do some fancy flying to get out of the
way! But everything's fine now. Headin' for your new home.
You can say 'Well, I almost got run over in space!' Something
that doesn't happen too often."
Carol heard laughter all around her, but she had a feeling
the pilot was hiding something, that this wasn't an accident.
Again it was quiet, then finally the pilot came back. "In a few
moments," he remarked "you're going to hear a 'ding'. That will
be when our hatches connect with your ship section. Thank you for
flying with us. Enjoy your journey. Wish we could be going too!"
They disembarked and came out on a long corridor
with windows on one side. Carol saw something. Two small
ships attached to a bigger one moving it towards something a way off
from them.
"What's that?" Carol asked a man checking instruments nearby.
"Space tugs, ma'am," the man answered. "They were
sent out to retrieve something. Nobody's talking. Something went on."
"That bigger ship," Carol remarked "seems to have holes in it."
"That it does, ma'am," the man answered.
"Tell me something," Carol inquired "Does the ship that brought us up have weapons?"
"Of course, ma'am!" the man answered, "Twenty, forty
and sixty recoilless rifles. They're used on the rare event that
something too big for the shields is coming at them. They can
reduce it to small enough pieces that it'll be deflected in very short
order. It's all computerized, all automatic."
Carol nodded. Her daughter took her hand. "Why are they trying to hurt us, mother?" she asked.
Carol looked at her. "I don't know!" she
answered. "But I'm getting very, very tired of it, and I'm sure
other people are getting tired of it. I'm quite sure it will
stop, soon."
Her daughter smiled. They were escorted to
quarters that Carol could only call luxurious. Their living room
had a view of the central core. It was almost like they were in
an expensive high rise apartment building. They settled in.
Her husband was gone for some time, but then came back.
"What is going on?" Carol asked.
"We're not sure," her husband answered.
"Somebody commandeered a ship at the European space port, launched it,
and tried to overtake us. Our crew didn't particularly like the
idea and warned them off. They kept coming and the crew did what was
necessary. I don't think whoever it was expected it. Nobody's
saying anything, nobody's taking any credit, nobody's complaining."
Carol sighed. Peter came rushing in.
"It's lit up!" he cried, "Has it ever lit up! Tremendous
discharges of gas! All going towards the sun but being drawn back
and forming a tail. This thing's got more gravity than it should
have! It's obviously more massive than we thought. You
gotta see these pictures! They're incredible!"
Carol looked to her husband. "I'll get supper!" he snapped. "Go do what you're good at."
Carol smiled, nodded to Peter and they hurried off.
For the next few hours she studied the incredible pictures. "If I
didn't know any better," she finally remarked, "I'd swear those are
engine discharges! They're all going off in the same
direction. They must be producing incredible thrust! But
it's not altering that thing's trajectory. They're slowing it
down! It's slowing down!"
"It can't be!" the Professor snapped. "It
can't be! That would imply intelligent control. It can't be
slowing down!"
Carol studied the readings one more time, then
straightened up. "Well, maybe it can't be," she continued, "but it sure
as hell seems to be! I want at those telescopes on the moon!"
"Well, that's going to take twelve days," the Professor
managed. "Even we can't speed that up! So we'll just have
to be contented with what we've got."
A bewildered looking officer came in. "Excuse me,
ma'am, we just received word of something and they wanted me to tell
you. Terrorists attacked the UN Headquarters. Four big
bombs! Blew the hell out of the place! We received a
message. It said "Tell our dear astronomer problem solved.
Winged And Obnoxious." Came over the secure channel. They
told me to tell you, ma'am."
Carol nodded. "I don't think there's going to
be any more trouble!" she remarked. "I think who is ever
responsible for it is now somewhere where they won't bother anybody."
Peter and the Professor nodded. "Terrorists my
god damned ass!" the Professor muttered. Carol grinned. She
was having the same thoughts, the same exact thoughts! Terrorists
indeed! Terrorists indeed!