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Anlyn jogged along the empty corridor, past a fe quarters and a h a large cargo bay and then finally cainary boundary between passageway and cockpit, that invisible line in the decking rising like so to the pounding of her own pulse When she heard Edison sto out the sound of her heart, she knew she could no longer delay Sue, she stepped inside and approached the forward seating
Her skin crawled as she pushed through the invisible barrier, the sight of the e her with a sense of dread They were hu at all like the Drenard Ambassadorial ship She rested a hand on the back of the nav chair and lifted one foot, using it to scratch her other ankle It took her a er to reer welded around her leg, the chain no longer coiled by her feet
"Are you okay?" Edison asked He spoke in Drenard, a sign he was cos, rather than information
"I’ to sit"
"The removal of the armrest mechanisms will be elementary I’ll have the task performed prior to our intersection with the rift in spacetime" He bounded aft to search for tools, his switch back to English telling
Anlyn felt a stab of annoyance, but she had herself to bla to him She wasn’t worried about how poorly he’d fit in his seat, but hoell she would in hers
Walking around the outside of the pilot’s seat, she noticed the Bern arrangement conformed to human standards: leader on the left All the controls seeh covered in the Bern alphabet It was one of those languages she recognized, even if she couldn’t make out much of what it said The stylistic swoops and curls were often printed in political cartoons back ho funny or satirical about their sworn eneured out how to raise the seat while she waited on Edison to get back and translate; the pilot had left the thrusters running, but she couldn’t tell which control released the clamps
When she heard Edison set down a toolbox behind her, she turned and asked him which switch decouples the ship fro the dash a moment
Anlyn thanked hie His intellect occasionally threw up emotional barriers in their relationship, but it often opened other sorts of doors Like getting him on the Circle as the Cultural Counselor, for exah unspeakable tragedy, their mission’s sole Bern translator
Anlyn wrapped her pale blue hand around the control stick; she checked the needles on the gauges, h and red low marks She flipped the switch Edison had indicated and pushed away from the Keep
Before she knew it--before her eain Slow at first Hesitant But getting to the center of the Keep required a lot of twists and turns as she dodged around the trusses and steel bearess fro in the opposite direction
As she weaved between the glass corridors, passing close to several, she could see her people lined up inside, blue hands spread out on the glass Pairs of eyes tracked her passing, either ith astonishment or narroith accusations Anlyn felt like a cri curiosity Meanwhile, off to either side of her, sleek Dren-ardian starfighters kept pace, bobbing in and out of the uns trained her way
Just in case the specimen turns hostile, she told herself She wondered if the rumored power of Edison’s lance was all that kept theressed into the interior of the keep, the habitable corridors disappeared, and the density of the obstructing beaold canisters beca honey flashing out between the beaht, final squeezes, the three ships rounded into an open workspace where Anlyn could see several tugs pulling the blockade apart, creating a hole for her to fly through A collection of replace itself around the his flock
Anlyn had to hile they finished She held the ship perfectly still as the two starfighters hovered to either side, their bows pointing straight at her As if we pose ht She tried to ignore the their weapons ai the tugs work They pulled out several more layers of armored canisters--the innermost eaten away in places--until the rift was eventually exposed
When the tear in space becalish too obtuse for her to follow In the recess of gold opened by the tugs, she could see eliht stars It was an odd sight, for the tugs had only removed half the layers in one spot The hole in space stood in front of the rear half of the rest of the golden cube She and Edison were looking through theh a rip in the very fabric of the galaxy, a doorway to another galaxy that was not theirs
Anlyn shook the wonder of the scene away, scared that Bishar’s e of heart She increased thrust, e craft forward
"How’s the hyperdrive?" she asked Edison, wishing she’d boned up on soht from Drenard
He pulled up a different screen on his readout "Cycled and opti a bright, golden cave Ahead of them loomed a hole in space where the other half of the Keep should be Anlyn continued to power the ship forward, slow and steady She thought of all the brave men and women who had come on the mission with her, their lives lost And why? Had she er were they waiting for the Bern to show up--she and Edison were now going to them Once more, it felt like a ive her and Edison more time to announce their arrival in peace, or if she and her love were about to join the rest of herreduced to dust
The nose of the Bern ship broke the boundary between the two galaxies, and then the cockpit did the saold were suddenly replaced with tar-black space salted with an unfamiliar constellations of stars
Before Anlyn knew it, she and Edison were out aone, and theirinto the dark--piercing the vast and wild unknown
9
Molly exited the cockpit preparing to scold Walter, but instead found three strangers stoo bay: a human and two Callites All three of them were enormous, and all three wore coveralls splattered with a purplish paint Plu swirling around their feet
"Excuse in her question before choking on the nauseating reek of the figures A foul gaseous cloud had entered with the rotten Molly nearly gagged as the hu the interior of her ship with a smirk
"Mortimor?" the man yelled "You in here, you old bastard?" He looked over at Molly and sruff reply from her father
None came, of course Molly blinked the tears out of her eyes and covered her ed
One of the big Callites plopped down in Edison’s wide crew seat, his brown skin webbed with the outline of interlocking scales The s, flowing hair alaxy looked roughly humanoid, Callites took the similarities to another level Human kids who painted theuishable fro The overall likeness didn’t help the local tensions between them and Humans, of course Differences in skin texture see, the many other traits they had in common just ot co with obvious weariness--the other large male crossed over to the tool bench and picked up a power driver
"Hey, don’t touch that!" Molly said