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"Christina!" William hollers from above, startling Christina out of her single-minded search.
"Coming," her musical voice reverberating around the small room.
William turns to call again when Christina’s tall slender frame appears in the passageway.
"What do you need?" Christina asks softly, almost inaudibly, fearfully.
"The player isn’t registering on the system, again, I thought you had fixed the blasted thing." William’s voice softens as he notices her cringing at his tone, "Sorry, it just seems to be screwing up more and more often.
"It’s ok, we do need to have it repaired and run through a regular maintenance schedule, though we know we can’t do that," her voice regains its musical overtures.
"Can you fix it?"
"We believe so…"
"Well, hop to it, we need the maps to plot the next jump series."
"-K-," Christina opens a panel at the base of the console and disappears into the access system it covered.
"Boy, I wish she wouldn’t refer to herself as a group. I wonder why she does…" William thinks to himself as he watches her disappear into the machinery.
About three minutes later, William calls down the crawl way, "Christina? Need any help?"
The faint reply returns, "No, we’re fine Will, why don’t you fix dinner?"
"Understood."
William disappears down the corridor. Christina notices that the player connections have all been chewed up, like a rat might cause, she knew this wasn’t the case because rats couldn’t survive in the thin atmosphere. As she replaces the damaged wires, she ponders what could damage wires like that on this ship. She decides to show Will her findings but just as she finishes the last repair, Will calls down about dinner being ready.
"I just pray it isn’t Seinno Soup again," she mutters to herself as she crawls back out of the access system.
"We’re having Seinno Soup tonight," Will proudly proclaims as Christina closes the panel. As she suppresses a grimace, he smiles, "Just kidding, I know how you hate that. We’re having Tangent Line Tortillas. I don’t think you’ve ever had them before…"
"No, we haven’t, but they sound interesting," comes the nonchalant reply.
The two of them head down the corridor to the small galley that serves both as a kitchen and dining room. Only large enough to hold the cooking equipment and a small three person table, Will considered it perfect. Christina sat down at the table, while William took his ‘masterpiece’ off simmer and brought it to the table. He set one of the triangular plates in front of Christina and sat down with the other one. Christina looks at the blue-gray tortilla and pokes at it gingerly with her finger.
"So what do you think?" William asks, oblivious to her actions.
"Umm, well, it looks…interesting,"
"You don’t like it, do you?" Christina fails to cover for her loss of words.
"We, uh, don’t know what to do with it…"
"Uh, ok, like this," William lifts the larger end of the folded tortilla and bites into it, sending a trickle of red goo down his chin.
Christina nimbly whisks up a napkin off the table and dabs at the goo on William’s chin.
William sets the tortilla down and takes the napkin from Christina saying, "Christina, I’m not a little boy, I don’t need help wiping my face."
Christina starts giggling at William’s comment, causing him to break out laughing as well. The two of them continue their friendly laugh for the next few minutes until they are interrupted by the ship’s alarms. Christina is up and running down the corridor to the control deck, half a second after the alert starts. William, however, cannot react as quickly, nor is he as agile as she so he drops his plate on the ground, sends one of the chairs crashing on its side and then is out of the galley and heading to the bridge. When he arrives, Christina is already at her station and is coding in commands.
William hurries to his console and asks, "Any idea what’s going on?"
"Nope, the sensors and scanners aren’t picking up anything, and all the systems appear to be functioning... Wait! The alarm system itself is showing some inconsistencies within its own grid. That probably caused the alarm to trigger, Will, check the connections in panel three twenty-three dash fourteen beta, would you?"
"Three twenty-three dash fourteen beta, got it, be back in a sec," William dashes out of the room, hesitating only to grab a toolkit.
Christina continues to manipulate her console, watching for other problems.
"I think we have a rat problem," William tosses a chunk of frayed wire toward Christina.
"We can’t, this atmosphere is too thin for rats, remember?" Christina replies, catching the wire without even the merest glance away from her console. "Looks like a rat all right, I wonder what it is? The player connections were damaged this way also."
"I wonder what caused the damage then," William absently tosses a molecular pincer from hand to hand.
"No clue, we’ll have to have a complete scan & purging of the ship, next dock we make. Well, we’re going back down for some rest. See you in the morning," Christina retires from the bridge to her room.
"Well, I guess that leaves me to plot our course," William mumbles as he jabs at the console coding instructions for the course seeker.
"Will, when will we get to De-Larn 4?" Christina asks between bites of the syphoid soup.
"Few hours, why?"
"No real reason, we just took a look at our diminishing number of supplies."
"Do they seem to be dropping faster than normal?" William shakes his spoon slightly at Christina.
"We wouldn’t know, we don’t monitor the food closely enough, probably should though." Christina looks thoughtfully into her bowl of soup.
"Yea, I guess. How much do you think it will cost for the repairs and general maintenance?"
"Oh probably around a hundred thousand, We should look for work there."
"I know, didn’t you want a Scan & Purge also?"
"Yes, we’d better add another twenty thousand to the cost. How much do we have in reserve?" Christina finishes her bowl of soup and takes it into the small kitchen.
"I believe we have about a hundred fifty thousand in reserve, we probably won’t have any after restocking the ship’s food supplies."
"We’re going to prepare the system for arrival," Christina disappears out of the small galley.
The two spend the next couple of hours preparing to dock with the space station, until the computer alerts them the station is in sensor range. They return to the bridge and start sending identification codes, and docking requests. The answer returns directing them to port 824 and provides a course.
"Would you look at the size of that starbase!" William gasps as the ship adjusted course, bringing the space station into full view.
"Yes, that is a rather large station, must be a major traffic hub, we should be careful."
"You’re right of course, I bet that station houses a hundred thousand residents plus it has to have thousands of travelers passing through each day.." William continues to gaze at the enormous station.
"It is home to 243,518 people. It averages 3,710 travelers per day. It has 2000 ports, and is where 8 different species hold diplomatic meetings with each other. On a side note, we are not known by 5 of those species, 2 want us dead, and the last considers us an asset to be protected." Christina brings the statistics up on the main viewer.
"You’re too exact you know that? At least we have a possible ally here, though two enemies aren’t wonderful, could you give me the percents of population?" Will attempt to examine some of the ships immediately around their docking port.
"Just a second, Ah, here we are, Humans 28%, Thrilbian 12%, Clathrans 11%, Torians 11%, Flaeioubians 10%, Lichen 9%, Zionites 9%, Elvish 5%, Other 5%, that what you wanted?"
"Yea, now the Clathrans and the Humans are the ones after us right?"
"Yes, and the Flaeioubians are our possible ally."
"Great, over a quarter of the population would just as soon hand us over to their respective governments. Are you sure you want to dock here?" William’s skeptical look fails to achieve anything.
"Of course, we don’t have much choice anyway. But also the Humans and Clathrans don’t want to get on the bad side of the Flaeioubians, do remember they are still more powerful than our two enemies combined."
"Good point, we’ll just have to run into a Flaeioubian first. Wait, isn’t this a human run space station?"
"Yes and no, the Zionites actually run the station docking and ship id checking. Humans run most of the shops and businesses on the station. It was actually a jointly constructed station of all eight races. The Thrilbians make up most of the security of the station and the Clathrans and Torians deal with the power distribution. We can’t figure out what the Lichen provided, possibly raw materials? Anyway the Elvish are the coordinators and maintainers of communication."
"Ok, ok, I get the picture." William groans infuriatingly.
"Well, you don’t have to be so curt." Christina sulks.
The computer alerts Christina that the space dock now has maneuvering controls to align the ship with the dock. The ship silently adjusts is speed and alignment as the space dock moorings extend to hold the ship firm. The umbilical dock attaches itself to the little ship’s airlock with the silent hiss of pressurizing air. Christina and Will, enter the airlock, cycling the system into the umbilical. They quickly pass through the transparent tube, into the docking facility’s main area. Christina moves quickly over to the registration desk. The young male Zionite at the registration desk gazes transfixed by the approaching Christina.
"Hello, is this where I verify my ship dock?" Christina queries when she reaches the deck.
"Uh, yes, just a sec," the young man blunders horribly as he attempts to regain some of his professionalism. "Ok, please state your name, ship’s name, dock number, and the ship’s registration race."
"Christina Belletrix, The Gandydancer, dock 824, human," Christina examines the young alien intently.
"Ok, give me a sec, and, here you are, your station registration," The young Zionite hands her a freshly printed registration paper.
"Thank you," Christina smiles warmly at the attendant as she disappears back into the crowds.
"Well, the cost is about what we guessed it would be, Will," Christina notes, over a cup of coffee with William. The two of them are sitting in one of the numerous restaurants at the station.
"You called it The Gandydancer?!?" William slaps the document down glaring at Christina.
"So?"
"So! Why in the universe would you choose The Gandydancer?"
"It seemed to fit with our ship. Just drop it, we’ll give it a new name next station, just like always."
"I give up," William stands and disappears out the door.
Christina quietly finishes her coffee and heads off to the temporary employment office. There she finds thousands of job offerings, few of which are worth even looking into. She finds one for a local Flaeioubian, and heads off toward its apartment. Upon reaching it she rings the bell and awaits an answer.
"Hello? How may I help you young la.. Christina!" The Flaeioubian jumps seeing Christina at the door.
"Um, Aluba?" Christina quickly associates the name with the face.
"How have you been, come in, come in," Aluba motions Christina into the apartment.
"I’m fine, how long have you been living here?" Christina politely declines the fried beetles Aluba offers.
"Oh, about half a year now. How are the two of you doing?" Aluba offers Christina a seat in one of the over-stuffed chairs scattered around the room.
"We’re fine, Will has been a bit of a pain at times," Christina glances around the sparsely decorated room.
"Oh, you found another partner have you? What is he?" Aluba smiles furtively.
"He’s human, what else did you expect with a name like William?" Christina suddenly remembers why she’s here, "According to the employment office, you needed someone to work for you?"
"Oh, yes, I need a package delivered to Rygon Prime. I’m willing to pay 500,000 up front and the recipient will pay another 500,000 at the occurrence of successful delivery. Does this sound like something you’re interested in?"
"Yes, how large is the package?"
"About a cubic yard, would you like to see it?" Aluba stands and leads Christina deeper into the apartment into what would normally be a bedroom. A single plastisteel box sits in the middle of the otherwise unfurnished room.
"I can’t move it, Christina," Aluba moves into the room to allow Christina in.
"Can you get it delivered to dock 824?" Christina places her hand on the box delicately.
"Yes, so you’ll take the job?" Aluba smiles enigmatically.
"Sure, We will be ready to depart after the ship gets scanned and purged, and we have the rest of our supplies loaded."
"Ok, you probably want you’re payment in cash, don’t you?" Aluba follows Christina back to the main room.
"Yes, thank you," Christina accepts the money Aluba pulls from her wall-safe.
"Here you should take some fried beetles to take to your friend," Aluba notices the platter it had set down a while ago.
"Ok, thanks, I’m sure he’ll enjoy them." Christina easily hides her wicked grin at the thought of William’s look about eating fried beetles.
Christina returns to the ship to find the scanning and purging around half complete, William is supervising.
"Will, need a break?"
"Yea, you willing to take over?"
"Yes, also, a cubic yard plastisteel crate will be delivered to us sometime today, we’ll be earning one million on successful delivery to Rygon Prime. Oh and we have a snack from a friend of ours for you," Christina gives William the little bag of fried beetles.
"Mmm, fried beetles, how’d you know I liked them?" William pops a beetle into his mouth and crunches happily away.
"Lucky guess, we guess," Christina turns away to avoid letting William see the sickened look on her face.
"Ok, I’m off to wander, keep a good watch on our ship," Christina cringes as she sees William pop another beetle in his mouth before disappearing around a bend.
Christina watches the crew running the scan, as they slowly moved from fore to aft of the ship carefully sterilizing the entire ship. Christina watches them idly, yet without missing any of what they were doing. After an hour of this monotony, the package Aluba wanted delivered arrives at the dock, which Christina signs to prove they received it. While the scan & purge people finish their job and vent the ship, Christina sits on the package, pondering what it might contain that would be worth so much.
A few hours later the autobots of the ship start loading the new cargo onto the ship. Christina stops them before they get the first crate loaded, "Are you sure there is no residual gas in the ship?"
"Affirmative, there is less than point zero zero zero zero zero five microbes per cubic millimeter. Is that acceptable?" The small robot monotonously drones.
"I guess," Christina sighs dejectedly. Obviously her thoughts are on other things.
Christina watches the autobots for the next hour as they load the crates into the ship’s hold. William returns right before the autobots finish and offers Christina a small package. Christina accepts the package as the two of them watch the autobots finish and reload themselves. The two of them alert the space station of their wish to depart and return to the ship. The station calls and clears them for departure in lane 29, and wishes them a safe voyage. Christina confirms the instructions and William waits until the moorings are clear and slowly brings the ship about and drifts toward lane 29. About a hundred feet from the dock, William gives a burst to the engines and they jump forward and away from the dock.
"Any destination?" William glances back at Christina.
"We should probably plot a course for Rygon, we have a shipment to deliver." Christina walks off the control deck, disappearing through the doorway.
William grumbles under his breath as he punches a course into the computer and watches it run through a series of coordinate crosschecks. After about five minutes he notices the computer seems to be confused about a segment of the course. He decides to at least take the ship one jump away from the space station, to avoid causing undue trouble for the station traffic controllers. He aligns the ship for the jump and triggers the jump-engine, pushing the ship into null-space and out again about three point one four one five light-years away from the station. He has the computer, which is still struggling with the one segment, display the troublesome segment on the main screen. Noting the segment passes close to a rather large black hole, helps the computer by plotting an additional two jumps to avoid nearing the event horizon. Christina returns, as he helps the computer plot the last of the course, with two steaming bowls of soup.
"Sissillian Spice Soup," Christina answers William’s unasked question as she sets a bowl on his console, and sits down at her console with the other bowl.
"I wonder what’s different?" William contemplates, as he tastes the exceptionally good soup. He glances over at her console. She is sitting with her long legs folded gracefully under her with one hand on the console, the other precariously balancing her soup bowl, as screens of data flicker across her lightly tanned face. Her mahogany hair, usually pulled back out of the way in a loose braid, falls across her face, casting shadows and giving the impression of a deeply troubled soul.
"Whatever she’s looking for, I hope she finds it soon," William thinks to himself as he turns his attention back to his soup.
Seven hundred thirty-two jumps later, the ship’s navigation system goes on the fritz and refuses to execute the next jump. William is about to manually align for the jump when Christina stirs from her meditations.
"Will? You should run the course through the cross-checker again. It maybe that the navigation system detects something but can’t figure it out," Christina sounds as if she has risen from a deep dream.
"I guess I could do that," William shrugs and adds, "for you..."
William reruns the cross-checker program and it detects a small anomaly in the sector they were about to jump into. Adjusting the coordinates for an adjacent sector, the navigation system immediately switches to a clear setting. Jumping just to the next point, William sets up the scanners he can to identify the anomaly.
"Good thinking Christina," William congratulates Christina, yet oddly she is still in deep meditation.
William scratches his head and slips up beside Christina to activate some scanners besides general navigation scanners. The main screen comes alive as the scan reports start coming back, the anomaly looks like a baby blue cloud of some dense gas. It also emits an abnormally high amount of gantrox radiation, which most likely is why the navigation system canceled the jump sequence. Being no expert in spatial occurrences, he attempts to wake Christina from her meditations. She awakens at William’s slight touch and seems a bit disoriented for a moment before focusing her sharp brown eyes on William’s face.
"What’s the matter?" She seems completely oblivious what is going on around her.
"We almost ran into an anomaly in space, but you stopped me from taking the jump manually."
"We did? We don’t remember."
"I think you were still in meditation, anyway, would you take a look at it? I don’t have much knowledge in the way of spatial anomalies," William points at the baby blue cloud on the screen.
Focusing on the screen, Christina replies, "Nope, that’s a new one. We should probably report it to De-Larn 4, that’s still the closest station right?"
"Nope, we are closer to Sto. Sta. 6 now."
"Do you think a Storage Station could deal with this?" Christina ponders, her gaze shifting from the anomaly on the screen to William and back again.
"Probably not, but they can get it to someone who could much faster than we can. Besides, we should avoid possible contact with anyone who might report our location to unwanted parties..."
"You’re right, the Storage Stations are owned by Flaeioubains aren’t they?"
"Yea, I’ll prepare the ship for the next series of jumps, you send the information we’ve collected so far, ok?"
"Ok," Christina turns from the main screen and starts tapping different keys on her console.
After the data is transmitted successfully the ship quickly makes the next few jumps.
"Christina, we should probably give a real name to our ship, it’s remained nameless sense we acquired it." William starts off the evening conversation.
"We guess, but what would we call it?"
"I don’t know, Wanderer? Galaxian? Gazer’s Sight? Lil’ Hunter? I don’t know."
The room is silent for almost a minute when Christina offers, "How ‘bout Journey’s End?"
"Hmm, I like it, but what journey?" William inspects the green meat, currently getting cold, sitting on his triangle plate.
"We’ll find out when we reach it." Comes the nonchalant reply.
"Hmm, how about Quest’s End?"
"But, Will, we aren’t on any quest."
"Ok, what about the Temporal Abyss?"
"Interesting, we like it." Christina takes her plate to the small kitchen to clean it.
"I’m going to check the jump status." William abandons his plate as he leaves, feeling their discussion over. The jump engine, William discovers is cooling from the previous 22 jumps. Out of sheer boredom, he rechecks the remaining 1259 jumps, making sure the computer has clarified them and estimates at lease another week of travel.
Christina finishes washing her plate and tosses William’s into the water, quickly cleaning it off and stowing it away with her own. She crosses the hall into her quarters, collapsing lightly on the bed, falling quickly into a sound sleep. As William passes Christina’s quarters, he gets a nagging feeling that something is wrong, but continues to his quarters anyway, for some rest.
William awakens to the computer alert, and runs off to the control deck to see what is going on. Arriving on the deck, he is surprised that Christina isn’t there ahead of him. Pushing the thought away, he hurries over to a console and discovers the ship is only 12 jumps from Roygon Prime, approaching the border of the Roygon System itself. Something nags at the back of his mind while he transmits clearance codes to the system government and is cleared on into the system. Setting the inner-system autopilot, he leaves the bridge and glances into Christina’s quarters to see why she didn’t respond at all to the alarm. Inside her quarters, he sees her tucking into her sheets. Creeping forward slowly, he finds himself beside the bed looking down at Christina’s face, which to his surprise is deeply flushed. Quickly reaching to her forehead he almost burns his hand at her temperature. Placing a moist towel on her forehead, he calls up medical help from her console link to the computer. He spends the next couple hours with her, noticing a steady drop in her temperature and her condition is apparently getting better. Having run some basic scans on her he knew she was having an allergic reaction to something, probably something on the previous station. When her feverish sleep disappears into a calm slumber, he sets the monitoring equipment to alert the ship computer of any major change in her condition and heads to the control deck to get landing clearance from Rygon Prime.
"Rygon Prime Landing Control, this is the Temporal Abyss requesting landing clearance." William radios down.
"Temporal Abyss, you are clear to land on launch pad 7. Please follow the landing beacon," Comes a reply after a few seconds of waiting.
William maneuvers the ship down and lands lightly on pad 7, noticing it's the last pad of the center. William searches the Rygon Prime’s Phone Directory finding a listing for a doctor. He finds one close to the docks and places a call, requesting the doctor’s help with Christina, knowing he should probably get a professional opinion. Returning to Christina’s room, he finds her missing. Looking astonished at the now empty bed, a sound comes from the adjoining room. He slowly turns toward the noise, his mind still mulling over the empty bed. Christina walks into the room, wearing only a towel, and stops short at the sight of William’s uncomprehending look.
"Will, what are you doing in our room?"
"I uh, well, you appeared sick, your temperature was 103 degrees centigrade, you didn’t react to a ship alarm and I was worried." William diverts his gaze toward the floor.
"Were we?" A perplexed look crosses Christina’s face for an instant.
"Excuse me," William mumbles and hastens out into the hallway.
William hurries back to the control deck, his blush slowly fading, and cancels his request for a doctor. Turning at the sound of Christina entering the bridge, William again apologizes for his entering her room without permission.
"It’s ok, Will, we forgive you, its not like it’s the first time you’ve seen us like that. We’ve been together on this small ship for the past 3 years," Christina walks up to William, looking into his green eyes with her deep brown eyes.
William feels her eyes penetrate him, as if she is looking deep inside him at his most personal thoughts. He manages a weak smile and attempts, somewhat successfully, to avoid cringing under her scrutiny. Suddenly, as if she found what she was looking for in his eyes, she gives him a warm smile, a small hug, and says, "We should probably figure out where to deliver that package."
"Yeah, I guess," William takes a calming breath as Christina turns toward her console. "I wonder how we will figure out who wanted this package, the sender didn’t give you a name did he?"
"Aluba isn’t a he, it’s a Flaeioubian."
"Oh, ok, any idea where to find the recipient of the package?"
"No idea, but the population of Rygon Prime is only 958 residents."
"900’s a rather large number," William trails off.
"Better than 90 million." Christina doesn’t miss a beat.
"Too true," William rolls his eyes thinking, "She seems back her normal self."
"Well, we’re going to go wander around the city, ok?"
"Sure, fine, just remember to call ma around noon, I’ll probably go wander around myself in a bit."
"Ok, love ya," she calls as she gracefully dashes toward the airlock.
As soon as Christina is out of the ship, William begins a search of all the information databases the planet has to offer, with the search string of "Christina Belletrix." He reroutes the results to his console in his quarters before setting out to explore the city himself.
Christina begins her wander by visiting every restaurant in the relatively small city. She makes a quick stop at the ship to drop off close to four dozen ‘doggie bags,’ before continuing her exploration. She wanders around the market places, looking for some clue as to the recipient of the package. She grumbles quietly as she again smashes the top of her head trying to pass through the 6’ doorways into the different shops. She spends most of the day in this ineffective search.
When she returns to the Temporal Abyss she immediately gets a wet cloth and collapses on her bed, placing the cloth on her battered forehead. From her current position she notices the still unopened package William had given her back on De-Larn 4. Sitting up to bring it within reach, she gently picks it up and sets it on the bed in front of her. Estimating the size to be about 2 inches on all sides, she can’t seem to decide what it might be. She sits slowly turning it over in her hands pondering its contents yet unwilling to open it as of yet, when she hears William return from his treks about a half-hour after she had returned.
She quickly situates the box back where she had left it originally at the sound of William’s light rap at her chamber door. "Come in," comes her reply after she had lain back down on the bed with her cloth.
"Looks like your height caused you some trouble today," William grins seeing the pale bruises forming under the damp cloth.
"Yeah, we’re three inches taller than the stupid doors in that city," Christina manages a warm smile at William.
"Any luck in finding the recipient of that package?" William is starting to look a bit uncomfortable.
"Nope, why don’t you have a seat?" Christina pats the bed lightly.
"If you wish," William feigns exasperation as he comes over and sits close to her head, which she promptly moves into his lap.
Idly stroking Christina’s long black hair William comments, "You know, I still don’t understand your use of plural pronouns when referring to yourself."
"We’ve never explained it to you," The reply sounds almost like a sigh of contentment.
"Would you explain it?"
"Perhaps; perhaps another," Christina falls asleep before she can finish.
"Perhaps another time, huh Christina?" William whispers softly as he slips out from under her, killing the lights as he silently leaves her room.
Returning to his room, William checks the status of his search. To his surprise, he already had about fifty-seven references and the search hadn’t even started connecting to the Galactic Grid yet. Unfortunately, most of them just relate to restaurants she had spent the day visiting, but one caught his interest, a reference to a ‘Belletrix Project.’ The reference was old, about four years old, dated almost right before he had met Christina. He began a second search, just on the Galactic Grid, on the ‘Belletrix Project.’ He deactivates the monitor and heads off toward the galley where he’s startled to see the tons of ‘doggie bags’ packed in the small refrigerator. Glancing through them quickly he selects an appetizing looking fried fish and pops it in the microwave as a quick dinner.
William wakes to a loud banging on his quarter’s door. "Come in," he carelessly calls out while attempting to rub the sleep from his eyes.
Christina bursts into the room and sits at the edge of his bed almost shouting in her excitement, "He found us!"
"Who?" William tries to lock his mind into the world of the awake.
"The guy who we are supposed to deliver the package to. Aluba had called him after we left dock, so he was expecting us."
"Ok, let me get dressed, and I’ll come help with whatever it is you want," William still hasn’t woken up enough to comprehend what’s going on.
"Opps, I didn’t even notice," Christina’s face flushes as she hops up and disappears out the door.
William lies there another few minutes after Christina left before getting up and heading into his little wash room. He splashes his face to help him wake up and wonders idly how much sleep he truly received. Suddenly he remembers his search and quickly dries his face as he moves over to the console. Powering up the screen, he discovers that the Belletrix Project is classified information, and he is unable to glean any information. Remembering that Christina wanted him to meet someone, he shutdown the console and hurries up to the control deck, stopping short at the sight of a two headed alien, standing patiently beside one of the consoles, a Thrilbian no doubt. William walks up to the short alien and gives a slight bow, which is the polite greeting for Thrilbians. The Thrilbian looks up at William, and returns the bow in kind.
"Hello, I’m Geefle, Aluba called me saying that two humans would bring a package to me. She also sent me a picture of Christina for my reference."
"Well, yes, we do. Christina?"
"Yes, Will, what do you want?"
"Should we have the autobots move the package out of the hold?"
"Ok, why not?" Christina shifts over slightly and types in a few quick keystrokes and returns to what she’s doing.
"So, do you mind telling me what’s in the box?" William turns back to Geefle.
"Hmm? Oh, not at all, there is a device called a dimensional transducer, contained within the box.
"Isn’t that the device that allows dimensional shifts to be created and controlled?" Christina offers from her console, telling William the purpose of the device without making it look like he didn’t already know.
"Yes, you’re right Christina, I didn’t know you knew anything about dimensional science," Geefle turns one of his heads toward Christina.
"We developed the new Synthetic Genius systems for the spaceship jump engines," Christina replies before she can think better of it.
"You? I thought Tina on Golgotha developed that system." Geefle gives Christina a confused look.
Christina looks up startled for a moment, drawing in a quick breath and rushes off the control deck.
"Hu? That’s not like her, I should probably go check on her. Looks like the autobots are finished unloading your crate, why don’t you go check to make sure it's undamaged, while I check on Christina?" William offers before he goes after Christina.
"Ok, here is the rest of your payment," Geefle hands William a half million credit slip.
"Thanks," William takes Geefle to where the autobots are starting to load themselves back into the ship.
"Thanks for making the delivery," Geefle waves as he picks up the box and loads it into his ground car, to the astonishment of William.
After a second, his astonishment fades and he remembers Christina. Rushing back into the ship, he looks for her first in her quarters. Not seeing her immediately, he moves on to the kitchen. He doesn’t see her here either and returns to the control deck thinking she might have returned there. The control deck is abandoned when he reaches it, sighing, he heads back toward his room. As he passes Christina’s door again, he hears the faintest of sniffling coming from inside. Looking in he doesn’t see Christina anywhere. Stepping into the room, he listens intently for a few seconds until another sniffle reaches his ears. He moves around the bed, guessing where the sound came from, to see Christina sitting on the floor, having pulled herself into a tight ball, sobbing silently, her back to William.
Approaching Christina slowly, William places his hands lightly on her shoulders and gently massages her shoulders. He feels Christina flinch initially but almost immediately her shoulders relax from the gentle movement of William’s fingers.
"What’s wrong, Christina?" William whispers softly as he continues to caress her shoulders.
Christina continues to cry, for a few more moments and replies, "It’s begun." She then falls back into her sobbing, light convulsions start to rock her body.
"Christina, try to calm down. You’re going to injure yourself if your not careful," William warns, attempting to calm her ragged breathing.
Christina’s sobbing subsides into sniffles after a few minutes and her breathing becomes more stable. "Christina," William gently commands, "You should get some rest, perhaps you’ll tell me how to help you when you wake up. Ok?"
"Ok," comes the barest of whispers from Christina’s lips.
William helps Christina into her bed, "Would you like something to eat?"
Christina gives a slight shake of her head. William kisses her delicately on her forehead before quietly leaving the room.
William decides to get some rest after he puts Christina to bed. He lies in bed worrying about Christina for almost an hour and a half before falling into a troubled sleep. His dreams are full of odd images, mostly shadows which shift and flow, always just out of sight. He feels a choking pain and awakens suddenly drenched in cold sweat. Looking around his dimly lit room, the dream quickly fades back into his subconscious. He gets up and dresses, heading to the galley for a quick bite to eat. Chewing hungrily on a sweet meat sandwich, he returns to Christina’s room, glad to see her at least fitfully sleeping. Knowing he won’t be able to go back to sleep, he enters the control deck and starts searching for anything that might help him, help Christina. He sends a message to Aluba, requesting any information, and tries to find out what she did before she met him.
After another two hours of fruitless search, he pushes the console away with a angry shove, sending his rolly-chair and himself zipping back into the back wall of the room. He pushes the chair back to the console and turns on some light rock music to help ease his nerves.
Looking around the small control deck, he suddenly realizes how claustrophobic the small ship really is. Having only seven rooms, one being the cargo hold, didn’t offer much change in scenery. He wonders idly if that claustrophobia has started getting to Christina. William drifts off to sleep in the rolly-chair.
William awakens suddenly as a blood curdling scream splits through the ship. William jumps from the chair he’s sitting on, sending it banging into the wall across the room, as he dashes toward Christina’s room. As he reaches the door to her quarters, another scream rips through William’s eardrums. He thinks he picks up a slight echo in the second scream but doesn’t give it any real thought, being too worried about Christina. Reaching her bedside, she doesn’t look well at all, still sleeping, she has gone dead white, appears soaked in sweat, and looks to be in extreme pain, she rolls back and forth across the bed, tangling herself in the sheets. William reaches down to hold her still, and is startled that her skin is ice cold. William thinks its odd that Christina is dry even though she looks drenched. Clutching his ears as Christina releases another scream, he staggers back and fights to resist the feeling he should run. Yet he definitely hears another voice in the scream. Slightly deafened by the scream, William moves back to Christina’s bedside and again resists the urge to flee. To William’s horror, Christina appears to be fracturing into multiple parts.
As the initial startlement fades, he realizes she’s separating into only two parts. However, as the process continues, neither part appears to be lacking. William realizes suddenly that one half is obviously male, the other female. Later William figures the actual process, from her first scream, to the complete separation of the two halves, was around three hours. The two halves of Christina are now both sleeping peacefully, and look well enough. William decides not to leave the bedside until at least one of them wakes up. He spends the next half-hour watching the two new forms. The female looks to be about five foot ten inches or so, the male a good six foot. Both parts are slender, not as slender as Christina, but slender none the less, at least compared to William. William estimates the male at 130 pounds and the female about 125. Neither looks nearly as light as Christina, who was a low 118. William sees Christina’s ebony hair on the female however it is short like William’s. The male has long grayish, white hair, though he looks no older than 26.
The female half wakes first, and looks curiously at the male half and that turns to William. A look of recognition flashes in her hazel eyes as she smiles, "Hi Will, what are you doing here?"
"Hu?" William looks dumbly at the female half of Christina because of her blatantly obvious question.
"Wait a minute! I understand! Hi Will, I’m Tina, pleasure to make your acquaintance." The female half offers her hand.
"Um, hi," William takes the offered hand and Tina shakes it firmly.
Tina climbs out of the bed and heads off into the wash area of Christina’s quarters. A few seconds later, William hears running water, this wakes up the male half of Christina, who looks at William with the same penetrating eyes Christina had and then yells, "Who in the world are you! And what are you doing in my room?"
"I am William Hartz, and I was worried about Christina, whom you appear to be part of." William retorts, unfazed by the guy’s harsh tones.
"Hu? Christina? Oh that’s right, hello, sorry about that. I’m Christopher, it’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance," Christopher also offers his hand to William.
William shakes Christopher’s hand and then stops him from doing what Tina had just done and asks, "What in the universe is going on, anyway?"
"Oh, sorry, Christina didn’t tell you for a reason, if you can wait a bit longer we’ll explain it to you. Ok?" Chris sits back down on the bed to wait for Tina.
A bit later Tina comes out and Chris goes in. William tries the same question on Tina and gets back an identical response. William sighs, and sits back to wait for Chris.
While waiting for Chris, William decides to fix a meal. Tina tries to help but just gets in the way. William and Tina look up as Chris enters the room. William gawks at Chris’s long silver hair. Now that it had been washed, it no longer looked the dull gray of earlier.
"I’m a quarter Elvish," Chris noticing William’s surprised look, "I get my hair from my grandmother on my father’s side."
"Hmm, interesting, care for something to eat?" William asks after a awkward moment.
"Sure, I’m starved." Chris takes the seat beside Tina as William places the Clathran style burgers on the table.
"Aren’t these like the Clathrans make?" Tina curiously pokes the burger with her finger.
"Yes, Tina, we’ve had them before," Chris grows before taking a large bite of the burger. "Hey! These are great burgers! I’ve never had any like this before!" Chris exclaims after he swallows.
"Well thanks, I do my best," William smiles lightly. "Willing to explain the two of you?"
"Hu? The two of us?" Tina looks perplexes for a moment, an understanding flicker flashes through her eyes, "Oh, of course, I guess. Chris?"
"Yeah, we should probably explain to him," Chris nods slowly, "Will, what do you know about the Belletrix Project?"
"Only that it’s classified information, I don’t have the hacking skills of Christina."
"Ok, I’ll give you a brief explanation, ok?" Chris nods his understanding.
"Sure," William sits back and prepares for what maybe a long story.
"The Belletrix Project was started about seventeen years ago by fifteen scientists under multiple grants from The Federated Human Planets, Clathran War Funding, Elvish Biological Research and Development, and Hadrakian Battle Inc. Oddly enough, the Hadrakians and the Clathrans didn’t realize they were cofunding a project. I doubt the project would’ve received funding from both groups if they knew, as you know they were and still are at war with each other. Anyway, the project had different purposes offered to each of the funders,"
"So the project was funded under false pretenses?" William cuts in.
"You could say that, however, each of the offered purposes does relate to the true purpose of the project. It’s just that no purpose fully encompassed the true one. The true purpose, obviously, was to see if it was possible to merge two living beings, physically and mentally, while being able to separate them at a later date with little or no individual personality loss. Tests were conducted on many different species of animals initially, however, the scientists couldn’t figure out how to test the animal’s personality differences."
"What were the reasons provided to the funders?" William’s question interrupts Chris’s train of thought.
"Hu? Oh, well lets see, the Clathran War Fund was told it was to develop a biological chemical to enhance a fighter’s abilities, the Elvish BR&D just likes supporting biological experiments, they don’t seem to care why and the group didn’t provide them with much of any reason. The Hardrakian Battle Inc. was told the project offered cures for some physical defects that had started showing up more and more often in newborn children during the past couple of years. Does that answer your question?" Chris sounds a bit irritated.
"Yes, please continue your explanation," William nods, ignoring the irritation in Chris’s voice.
"Lets see, oh yes, personality isolation in the test subjects. The group sent out a call for test-subjects, after they acquired the desired number the call was repealed and put under classification. I think there were two other human merges, besides us, one Clathran set, two Elvish sets, and two cross-races. Elvish and Clathran, Hadrakian and Human, I think. Anyway, the cross-races failed miserably, I think the two mergers died after about ten hours of agonizing pain and problems. They feared my quarter of Elvish genes, but Tina insisted she wouldn’t back away. I didn’t really think it would be a problem. Otherwise, most of the mergers were rather expected. Tina and I were the closest to the third failure, we withstood a little more than six hours of the same agonizing pain you saw when we split. From the tests we observed before our joining, we learned that the merge became less and less time consuming with each merge or separation. A few mergeforms were constantly merging and separating until it took only a couple seconds to complete the process. Talk about the ultimate fighter, one instead of two for training and resource consumption.
"Back to my story, we were one of the last groups to be merged together. The project was canceled a bit after we completed our merger. Everyone panicked when they heard the news that the project was canceled. As you know, all test subjects of a canceled project are destroyed, the data gathered is put under the highest classification it can be and all personnel debriefed. Now remember that this isn’t standard military debriefing, mind-wipes, disappearances, and facility destruction is this type of debriefing. Very nasty business. Anyway, Christina escaped with two other mergeforms into space and laid low for a while. The three of us split up to make hunting us down harder. Christina wandered the space stations and planets for about five years before she met you and somehow convinced you to allow her to tag along. I think that brings you up to date." Chris sighs slightly after finishing his speech.
"So why did Christina split back into you two just a bit ago?" William asks oblivious to the obvious curiosity he’s showing toward this project.
"I don’t know, Tina any ideas?"
"Well, it could have something to do it has been exactly ten years from when we were first merged. This process may only have a extended period of that long."
"Are you trying to say I’m never going to see Christina again?!?" William jumps up, startling the other two with the force of the exclamation.
"Well, not exactly. I think that we’ll be able to remerge back into Christina, however, I don’t know, the project only lasted seven years before being disbanded." Tina stammers under William’s harsh glare.
Seeing the fear in Tina’s eyes, looking so much like Christina for a moment, William settles down back into his seat, dispirited.
"Don’t worry Will, we’ll try to remerge tomorrow, ok?" Tina caresses William on the shoulder, easing the taunt muscles.
"Ok, thanks," William sighs, calming down as Tina continues her wonderful massage.
William spends the most of the night, unable to sleep, tossing and turning, unable to get comfortable, his apprehension about tomorrow’s plans keep his mind from allowing rest. Finally he falls into a fitful sleep.
Waking to the smell of something burning, William jumps out of bed, throws on a robe and collides with Chris in the corridor as he rushes out of his room.
"Sorry, Chris," William apologizes as he tries to locate the source of the smell.
"That’s all right, its coming from the kitchen," Chris helps William back to his feet and they rush into the small galley to see Tina standing over a pot, which is belching flames and smoking very badly.
Rushing over to the pot, William crashes a larger pot over the flames, not seeing the lid anywhere. He holds it down, preventing any more oxygen from reaching the flame.
"Tina, just be glad we’re in a low oxygen atmosphere, otherwise you may have been in flames also." Chris scolds Tina. William sees, out of the corner of his eye, Tina cringing from Chris’s scolding.
"It’s all right, what were you trying to cook anyway?" William continues to hold the pot over just in case the fire isn’t truly out yet.
"Breakfast."
"I’m just glad we’re at port," Chris comments, "At least we can vent the smoke and clean the air filters, no problem. We’ll have to postpone the remerge for a bit longer."
"Fine," William waves his hand idly at Chris as he concentrates on watching the pots for fire as he lifts the larger pot slowly.
The three of them spend the next six hours cleaning the filters and repairing the galley. Chris fixes a quick lunch and they sit down to plan the remerge.
"Ok, William, you’re going to have to monitor us as we merge. These are the lists of the exact amounts of chemicals we each need in our bodies during the merge, and their tolerances." Chris hands William two electronic pads. "I figured them out last night."
"Hmm," William starts skimming the lists on the pads, "What’s Choriolia Beta XE? And why so much?"
"Choriolia Beta XE is the base of a mergehalf, most races have water, we have Choriolia Beta XE."
"Mergehalf?"
"Oh, sorry, that’s the term used for someone who has been merged with another and is currently not merged." Chris takes another sip of his Irish Tea.
"Ok, I think I can monitor these values."
"Great. Also, you might want to know, one of the problems of merging is that the bodies form large amounts of heat, and originally the water-base of the bodies of the two too be merged would boil, killing the volunteers. Choriola Beta XE boils at 342 degrees Celsius, instead of the 100 degrees of water. When sick, our fevers tend to be above the boiling point. But then again, we rarely get sick."
A loud crash startles the two guys and they turn in unison to see Tina, blushing brightly, standing amidst a couple of broken plates, and three servings or so of rice.
"Tina, I don’t remember you ever dropping a plate before." Chris glares at Tina.
William quickly gets out of his seat and helps Tina clean up the mess, all under Chris’s unwavering glare.
William and Chris continue their discussion on the specifics of the merging process, while Tina wanders aimlessly around the city. Tina returns right before local nightfall and stows a large amount of doggie bags in the small fridge. William enters the kitchen while she’s putting the bags away and exclaims, "So that’s what you’ve been doing. Visiting all the restaurants, again."
Tina looks toward William and his slightly lopsided grin causes her to swallow the retort she was going to say. "Yeah, I guess," she sighs as she slumps into one of the chairs.
"Something wrong?" William takes one of the seats beside her, a look of concern clearly showing on his face.
After a few moments waiting as Tina looks down at her hands, she replies, "I just want to be whole again." She then breaks down into silent sobbing while William gently caresses her back.
The next day, the three of them modify the small infirmary for the remerge process. It takes about two hours for them to set up the equipment, and it starts coming together, Tina appears to get more cheery. Around noon, They stop for a small break. William has lunch but Chris and Tina decide they shouldn’t eat anything, not knowing how it might affect the merge. After William finished eating, Chris and Tina both lie down on the cot. William attaches the probes and IV lines to each of them and starts doing checks on the equipment, not wanting anything to go amiss.
"So, how do we start this thing?" William asks from the console he is sitting at, keeping an eye on the monitors and the two mergehalves.
"You’re ready?" Chris doesn’t turns his head slightly to look toward William.
"I’m ready, all I need to do is monitor you two and make sure your chemical balances remain within tolerances?"
"Yes. Tina you ready?" Chris slowly turns his head toward Tina.
"I’m ready whenever you are…"
"Ok, William, we are beginning the merge."
William concentrates on the monitors, showing the two of their status and a live video feed. The video feed shows the two of them grasp hands and the hands start to melt into each other. Their faces contort in agony as the merge begins. William notices a dramatic drop in the water level of them as their temperatures soar quickly to 150 centigrade. William triggers the air cooler system to help keep their temperatures down, as Chris suggested during their talk. William changes the IV feeds to compensate for a slight dropping off of sugar levels. William tweaks the IV lines for the next hour and a half. After this period, they are no longer distinguishable, the agonized screaming coming from Tina during parts of the process sent chills down William’s spine, but now the newly remerged Christina appears to be sleeping contentedly. William cut out one of the IV lines, not wanting to over feed any chemicals to her. The two status monitors aren’t synced yet, but are getting closer by the minute. When the two monitor readings synced, William noted the process took just over an hour and a half.
William gives Christina a quick look over, avoiding gazing too long at her personal areas, and notices her hair seems to have a more metallic shine in it. Otherwise she appears identical to how she looked when he met her. Her breathing was still heavy but she seemed complete. While William waits for her to wake up, he ponders where in the universe all that extra mass went. Christina weighs less than either of them alone, she is taller than either of them, but that’s expected. Christina stirs in her sleep, letting out a soft sigh as she shifts on the small cot. William watches her with a sense of great relief while still praying she had at least very close to the same personality, having had a chance to interact with each of the individual parts of her mentality.
William removes the last IV line and disconnects the three billion probes. He waits a full hour before Christina wakes up and looks around, fixing her eyes on William. To William’s surprise her eyes are now a piercing hazel color, instead of the brown he expected.
"What’s wrong?" Christina’s musical voice sends waves of ecstasy through William’s mind.
"Hu? Oh, your eyes are hazel instead of brown like they used to be." William quickly pulls himself out of his reverie. "Hungry?"
"Uh, hu," Christina sighs, without even attempting to move.
"Ok, I’ll go make you some soup. When you’re ready a jumpsuit is sitting on the chair to the right of the cot."
Christina, suddenly noticing her current state, attempts, ineffectively, to cover herself up. William, seeing this, quickly takes his leave and heads for the kitchen.
Christina lies on the bed for another few minutes before getting up and slipping on her jumpsuit. She stands and starts toward the kitchen, lead by the savory smell of boiling Dotres Root. She meets William in the hall, returning with a bowl of the mouth-watering soup.
"Christina, I don’t think you should be up and about at the moment." William skids to a halt, almost spilling the soup.
"And what would you know about it? You were introduced to the process only two or three days ago." Christina retorts, gleefully taking the soup from William.
"So I don’t know much about the merge process, I do know that after anything strenuous it’s a good idea to rest."
"And I did, for a full hour," Christina slips past William, balancing the soup perfectly, into the kitchen area.
William turns and follows Christina back into the kitchen. He watches her as she eats her soup and smiles idly.
"What’re you smiling at?" Christina inquires, a slight look of forced confusion on her face, causing a rather comical expression.
Suppressing a laugh, William answers, "Oh, nothing, nothing at all."
"You know, we should probably head toward Vectra Prime." Christina quickly washes her bowl, tossing it on the drying rack as she returns to the table.
"Why?"
"Well, oh wait! We forgot to tell you! We received an subether message on the last series of jumps. It offered us a job."
"What’s the job consist of?" William tosses his bowl toward the sink, causing the bowl to bounce off the sink lip and into the water.
"Why’d you do that?" Perplexity wanders aimlessly across Christina’s face.
"I’d never tried that before. Just thought I would."
"Ok, fine. Anyway the message didn’t say what the job was but it did quote a price."
"And, what price?" William urges gently.
Rolling her eyes she responds, "More than we know how to say out loud. Well we guess we could say, three point eight four times ten to the twenty third power."
"Wow," William’s comment comes out more as a whistle than a word. "Lay in a course, full speed to the left!"
"Left?"
"Yea, why not?"
"You should have some rest, we’ll go lay in the course."
"But I’m not tired."
"True, you’re not tired, you’re exhausted. Go get some rest or we’ll force you to."
"Ok, ok," William leaves the kitchen toward his room.
"We’re going to check on you after we plot the course, you’d better be in bed." Christina calls after William.
William turns slightly and waves, and disappears into his quarters. Christina heads up to the bridge where she requests launch clearance in about thirty minutes, and starts the computer planning out a course for Vectra Prime. After making sure everything is in order, she heads back down toward William’s room. She slows her pace and moves quietly up to the door. Listening intently and not hearing anything she opens the door and sees a deeply sleeping William lying, still dressed, on his bed. Smiling slightly, she carefully shifts William into a more comfortable looking position, and pulls one of his blankets over his body, unsettling a optic chip lodged in the sheets. Curiously picking up the chip, she wonders why William would sleep with computer parts.
"Goodnight, Will, we told you were more tired than you thought." Christina leaves William to his sleep.
Christina returns to the bridge, idly twirling the chip between her fingers as she sits down. She leans back and examines the chip as if she might be able to read the data off it by sight, before slipping it into the optic reader. She pauses over the activate switch, wondering momentarily is she was invading William’s privacy, before toggling the control. The screen flickers slightly and goes out. Christina raps on the monitor casing for a few seconds as the monitor flickers back on.
"We have to get a new screen," Christina thinks idly as she accesses William’s chip.
The data on the chip consists of old ship reports and cargo transfer receipts. Christina is about to toss the chip into the archives when a oddly labeled file passes the screen. Scrolling back to it she opens the transfer report that has an improperly formatted label and a poem opens on the screen. Quickly skimming the poem, Christina guesses it was written by William, and is about her. Returning to the file list, she randomly opens up another ship report and finds a letter written to her from William, but never sent. Realizing that this chip was designed to look like a standard backup chip, she quickly removes it from the reader, replaces the chip’s protective cover and pockets it. She checks the computer’s course and verified launch clearance before lifting off and leaving the small planet behind, before turning in herself.
Christina returns to her usual schedule within a week, waking before William, turning in for the night after William. If anything, she seems to be more active. William, noticing a slight shortage of datachips, discovers Christina has stored close to three terraquads worth of chips into her quarters, one of her walls looking almost like a computer core module.
"Christina, whatever are you doing?" William asks when he sees her bringing another armful of chips into her quarters.
"We’re designing a serum to aid in some other ailments associated with the merging process. The data you gathered when we remerged is amazing."
"I didn’t gather three terraquads worth though!"
"Actually we’re using nine terraquads, our ship uses the chips inefficiently."
"How in the universe do you get nine terraquads of data from less than 73 megaquads?"
"Easy, we’ve been running additional scans ourselves, and pulling all the research that we had hidden across the Grid. You’d be surprised how much of the research people are listening to on their computers without even realizing it."
"Hu? I don’t understand."
"Ok, we’ll give you an example. Listen..." A beautiful song fills the room.
"I think I’m still missing the picture, how is this research for the merge process?"
"Here is the last two bits of each wave form." Christina brings up a series of ragged lines with sections in red.
"Uh huh."
"Now we extract those bits and gather them up, placing them in the predetermined order, and we have a report on Arcamedies’ second merge." Christina demonstrates as she explains.
"Oh! I get it a complex data encryption system! Why hasn’t anyone else thought of that?"
"That’s the problem. Some of our reports have been overwritten by others attempts or successful encodings of their own. That’s why we have only nine terraquads instead of the close to four hundred we had originally."
"Four hundred terraquads! What did you record about the merges?"
"Everything, we have brainmaps of each individual before, during and after each and every merge. Some individuals had their neural, physical, and phycidelic functions constantly monitored. That takes up about a gigaquad a hour."
"Is any of it helping?" Will takes a peek at Christina’s datalibrary.
"Course not, well not yet, we need about another fifteen terra before we can start using any of the data. Of course we don’t mean the constant brain data, although that may prove useful." Christina starts plugging the newly collected chips into her homebuilt multiplexor.
"At this rate we’ll have to stop for more chips. Hey, why haven’t you used this chip yet? You starting to pull our old backups for your little project?" William notices the chip Christina had left lying on her dresser.
Christina turns and realizes with a slight horror that that is William’s chip, she had found in his room, "Well, we um, well..."
"It’s ok, just remember to log which backups you’re decommissioning." William tossed the chip toward Christina before heading back to whatever he was doing.
"Close one, we’re going to have to remember to hide that chip," Christina slips the chip into her jumpsuit and returns to her project, but only for a second before she calls, "Hey Will? When are we arriving at Vectra Prime?"
"About three hours to the system, another hour or so to actually reach the correct planet, why?" Comes an almost muffled reply.
"Just wanted the higher bandwidth of a direct link to a planetary repeater."
"Uh, we have just one problem with that." Will reappears at the doorway.
"And what’s that?" Christina motions William on in, "You can enter my quarters. You don’t have to stand in the hall."
"Sorry, the problem is that Vectra Prime is surrounded by an nebula, they don’t have a repeater like most planets. They use a series of buoys spread throughout the nebula to communicate with the rest of the universe. We’ll probably be doubling, if not tripling, their bandwidth if we allow them to use our comm system."
"But won’t our comm system be dropped when we enter the nebula?"
"Of course not, our communication is through the subether. No nebula under there."
"We’d forgotten."
"Obviously. Well, I’ve got to get back to my repairs."
"Want any help?"
"No, you just stay and work on your database. Remember to research some sort of high capacity data storage devices that we can purchase when we reach Vectra. I don’t really want to run out of chips... Thinking on that a moment, could I have one of those for some of my data?"
"Sure, here you go." Christina tosses one of the new blank chips toward William who catches it effortlessly.
"Thanks," William nods and leaves Christina to her database.
William guides the ship to the small planet without problems, immediately receiving landing clearance because of the particularly small amount of traffic. Out of one of the portholes, William notices, as he’s getting ready to disembark, a group of people starting to gather around the ship.
"Christina? Take a peek out the porthole, would you?" William calls down the main corridor.
"Just a second," Christina chimes from her room, apparently still working with her database. "Oh, my, a welcoming party! Will wait for us, we want to meet the party!"
A few seconds later Christina appears on the bridge tying her hair back loosely.
"Ready?" William ponders watching Christina.
"Lets go," Christina nods, leading the way to the hatch.
Christina opens the hatch, and looks out at the thirty-some people gathered around the main hatch, all of them are tall, at least for humans, most with black hair, a few with other dark colors. One of them sticks out of the crowd slightly, a stout man of about thirty-two, wearing a gray suit with a blood red sash. The sash itself has three markings Christina can’t place, a couple people around him look abnormally strong, probably bodyguards of the stout man, if he’s important. Everyone has cheerful smiles on their faces, hopefully a sign of good will. Christina smiles back in return and steps off the ship onto the strangely soft landing pad. William follows closely behind, stumbling as he steps onto the pad, thankful of Christina’s presence as she grabs his hand to help steady him. To his surprise she doesn’t let go after he regains his footing.
The man with the sash moves forward, the crowd parting to let him through, toward Christina and William. "Hello, welcome to Vectra City, the place where the entire planet is a city, I’m the mayor of this section of the city," booms the man with the sash, offering his hand.
"Well thank you, we’re pleased to be here," Christina smiles at the mayor taking his hand and giving it a firm shake.
"Same goes for me," William gives the mayor’s hand a fair shake.
"Would you care to tell us of you’re purpose here, not many visitors come around this place, because of the nebula." The mayor’s gaze shifts from Christina to William and back to Christina, apparently unable to decide who’s in charge.
"Well, someone called us offering a job of some sort..." William begins.
"So you’re the people Tristian called! Someone go find Tristian." The mayor interrupts William. "Come, follow me," The mayor sets off toward one of the exits to the spaceport.
Christina turns to look at William, and only receiving a shrug in response, moves to follow the mayor’s quickly retreating form. William follows Christina’s lead, after making sure the ship is locked up.
The streets are made of the same semi-solid substance as the landing pad. The buildings immediately around the spaceport are a bit squat, however they increase in height as the party moves away from the port.
"Shouldn’t be too hard to find the spaceport again," William whispers to Christina.
"We’ve never had a problem finding the ship again anyway, Will," Christina whispers back, closing the discussion.
After a couple minutes walking the mayor climbs a series of steps to a series of beautifully carved double doors, which he passes through, glancing back to make sure Christina and William are still behind him.