As he worked with the complicated instruments, Torri felt a guilty sense of excitement. Yes, the world was in trouble, but there were at least a few days before the Scourge got there. And in the meantime, she got to spend more time with her Kindred and see an alien planet! How exciting was that? She just wished she could tell her grandmother.
Nana would have loved this, she thought, looking through the viewscreen at the blanket of stars in the vast blackness of space. She always said if a spaceship came along and offered to take her on an adventure, she’d jump at the chance.
Well now Torri was getting that chance and she was determined not to waste it. She was going to get to see things no human had ever seen before and she was going to get to see them with Vic.
It was going to be amazing and she was going to try to forget that at the end of it all, she would have to tell the big Kindred goodbye forever.
Thirty-Eight
Saturn’s rings were magnificent and the wormhole looked like a swirling blue vortex in the darkness of space. It was a little bit frightening, flying through it, but Vic held Torri’s hand and promised her it was perfectly safe.
“You wouldn’t want to go through an unstable wormhole,” he said as they entered the swirling vortex. “Because you don’t know where you might come out and if the wormhole closed, you’d be stuck in whatever part of the universe you landed in. Or possibly even in an alternate universe.”
“That sounds terrifying!” Torri exclaimed. “A whole other universe?”
He nodded. “I’ve heard of it happening. But don’t worry—a stable wormhole that’s been mapped and verified is just fine. Think of it like a door from one part of the universe to another. It’s what you humans call a “cut short.”
“Uh, I think you mean a shortcut,” Torri corrected him, smiling. “But as long as you say it’s safe, I trust you.”
“Thank you, it’s good to be considered trustworthy,” Vic said seriously. “Look—we’re reaching the end of the hole already.”
As he spoke, the ship shot out the other end of the swirling blue vortex into a different part of space.
“And there’s our destination. Gemma Alpha Three.” Vic pointed to a small reddish dot on the viewscreen in front of them. “You will probably be glad of your warmer clothing once we get there,” he added, nodding at Torri’s sweater. “Their sun is a red giant which doesn’t put out as much heat as Earth’s star, Sol.”
“But do they have an oxygen atmosphere? I mean, will I be able to breathe there?” Torri asked anxiously.
“Of, of course! Though you will feel slightly lighter when you walk on the surface of the planet—it has about seven-eighths of Earth’s gravity.”
Torri laughed.
“Great—I get to lose weight without even trying. What are the inhabitants like?”
“Well…” Vic hesitated. “You may find the Gemmites somewhat strange to look at. Their anatomy is barely humanoid and they used to have very large predators on their planet, so they evolved some rather startling adaptations in order to protect themselves. Now, of course, the predators have all died out, but the adaptations remain.”
“I guess you’ll have to tell me what they’re saying,” Torri remarked. “Since there’s no way I’ll be able to understand their language.”
“I might possibly be able to help you there.” Vic looked thoughtful. “Most long-range shuttles are equipped with a shot of translation bacteria, just in case the warrior driving a shuttle needs to communicate with a species whose language is especially difficult to master.”
“Translation bacteria?” Torri asked as he got up and went to search in the back part of the ship.
“Bacteria that enable you to understand almost any language in the known universe,” he said, coming back with a small black box.
“Including the foreign languages in my own world?” Torri asked excitedly. How cool would it be to get a job as a UN interpreter or something like that when she finally got back to Earth?
Vic shrugged as though speaking and understanding any language in the world was no big deal.
“Of course. You will instantly understand what anyone is saying because the bacteria will cross your blood-brain barrier and live in the parts of your brain that control speech. They will render instant translations to you and allow you to reply in the foreign tongue, though to you, it will sound as though you are speaking your own native language.”
“The blood-brain barrier?” Torri looked askance at the little black box, which he had opened to reveal a rather large syringe with a multi-tipped needle at one end. “Um, are you sure it’s safe?”
“Oh certainly—it’s safe for all humanoid species,” Vic assured her. “But if you’d rather not take it, I can translate for you, if you wish to talk to any of the Gemmites,” he added.
“No…” Torri took a deep breath. “No, I said that I trust you and I meant it. Go ahead—stick me.”
She pushed the sleeve of her sweater up and offered him her bare left arm.
“You should only feel a mild pinch,” Vic told her as he pressed the multi-tipped needle to her upper arm.
There was a moment of pain, a cool sensation under her skin, and then it was all over. Torri waited to see if she would have any kind of reaction but she felt fine. In fact, she felt completely normal, which was a little bit of a disappointment.
Maybe it didn’t work on me, she thought. Well, Vic could always translate for her if it was necessary to talk to anyone.
The pinkish red dot in the sky got larger and larger until it was a planet with continents and oceans just like Earth. Well, except for the coloring. While Earth appeared bluish-white from space, Gemma Alpha Three was much more red and orange with swirls of purple and white.
Either they’ve got a lot of iron in their soil like Mars or their vegetation and oceans are really interesting colors, Torri thought as Vic guided the ship into the alien world’s atmosphere.
“Let’s see now,” he murmured, frowning. “It has been some time since I visited this planet, but the Gemmites are a long-lived species—hopefully the mechanic I am looking for is still living.”
They flew lower, over a busy urban area with skyscrapers that put any on Earth to shame. They were bigger and broader than Earth buildings, as though they were meant to house larger people than humans, Torri thought. Most of them were shades of gray or brown, but they seemed to be covered in vegetation—climbing vines with orange and red and purple leaves. But each of the leaves looked to be as big as a car—was everything bigger on Gemma Alpha Three?
“Uh, how big are the Gemmites, anyway?” she asked Vic, as he circled even lower, over an area that seemed to be a kind of marketplace.
“Oh…about the size of the Earth animal called a rhinoceros, I suppose,” he said thoughtfully. “But don’t worry—they aren’t aggressive,” he added. “Though they can be somewhat acquisitive and greedy—especially when it comes to sweets.”
“Sweets?” Torri asked, frowning.
“Sweet foods. The Gemmites have what they call a ‘sweet tooth’ right in the center of their mouths,” Vic explained. “It senses the presence of anything sweet or sugary, which they will go to great lengths to get.”