‘How did you manage to contact me on Earth then?’ James asked. ‘I was definitely further than two thousand kilometres away when the telementor destroyed those rocks in the mine.’
‘The shuttle was used as a relay node. The closer you were to it, the easier it was for me to read your thoughts,’ Kalrea replied.
‘About reading my thoughts, Kalrea - from what you’ve told me, it seems that I’m going to have to get used to that.’
‘James, for you to pilot this ship, you have to use your thoughts. To communicate with me outside the ship, you’ll need the telementor.’
I knew she would say that,
he thought, before saying to Kalrea,
‘You have to obey me, right?’
‘Yes, James.’
‘In that case, I order you not to transmit or relay my thoughts to anyone or any other computer, without my permission. Is that understood?’
‘Completely,’ Kalrea replied.
‘Good. Now we understand each other, what do you want me to do?’ James asked.
‘I suggest you put the telementor back on your wrist. I’d feel a lot better knowing I could protect you.’
Kalrea could take some time getting used to. She’d better not nag me like Carol,
James thought. He placed the telementor back on his wrist.
‘I promise I won’t nag you,’ Kalrea said, reading his thoughts.
‘Kalrea!’
‘What?’
‘Never mind.’
Kalrea invited him to try the seatra by laying down in it. James took off his shoes and apprehensively got into the seatra. He laid back and his heart started to beat fast.
‘Don’t be afraid,’ Kalrea said softly.
That’s easy for you to say.
‘Relax! And only do what I tell you. You may feel slightly unwell until you adjust to the machine.’
Do what you tell me… right
, James thought to himself. The top lowered slowly and clamped shut.
James felt disorientated, almost like he was drunk, but it soon passed, leaving him feeling calm, warm and surprisingly relaxed.
Kalrea’s voice was not very clear in his head.
Think of bein’… on t… bridge
.
James concentrated hard.
Suddenly he was looking down at the seatra from outside. It was a strange feeling, similar to flying. It took him several attempts before he was able to maintain the image.
Good. Now try a… journey arou..d the Aurora Jame…,
Kalrea prompted.
James could see a clouded plan of the
Aurora
in his mind. Again he concentrated hard.
He looked into the cargo bay. The image in his mind was becoming a lot clearer. The room was relatively small compared with the exterior size of the ship. It was rectangular in shape, again light-grey, and could have housed a Boeing 747 aeroplane. In the centre of the room stood two shuttles, which were three times the size of the one that brought him to Lavmino. James could see many large well-organised piles of what looked like spare parts for the ship and stock of materials used in its construction.
For a second he could have sworn he saw something moving about in one of the piles of materials.
You’re seeing things; concentrate
, he thought.
Concentrate
.
Kalrea encouraged James to practice. His mind was free to travel anywhere on the
Aurora
.
The
Aurora
had three identical power generation sections. One of the rooms was situated towards the front of the ship, the others way out near the port and starboard edges of the ship. James explored one of them.
He viewed a rectangular room with a very high ceiling. There was a grate floor, which encompassed a very large donut shaped reactor. Towering over the reactor was a tall cylindrical column, which almost touched the ceiling.
James eagerly followed some of the many ducts that led away from the reactor into one of the drive rooms. He could now see a pair of dark-grey cylinders used to propel the
Aurora
. These stretched the length of the ship and filled the entire room.
How is the ship propelled, Kalrea? I can see right through the ship from front to back. They’re just cylinders.
They’re the most advanced type of
event horizon drives ever developed,
Kalrea replied.
But aren’t event horizons related to black holes.
How do they work? There’s nothing in them.
Kalrea explained,
Plasma is fed from the reactors into the drive chamber at incredible velocity through thousands of profiled holes in the side walls. As more and more plasma is injected a vortex is created, forcing the plasma towards the centre of the drive chamber and increasing its density until a black hole is formed.
Kalrea could sense James was out of his dept.
She continued,
Basically, to propel the ship, space is sucked in through the front of the drive and pushed out the rear. No moving parts and the constant flow of plasma protects the chamber from being pulled into the black hole.
Can’t wait to see these work,
he thought.
James also found he could look out into the cavern with the feeling he was standing on the hull.
Kalrea, the surface of the ship. I’m not sure what to make of it
, he remarked.
It looks like it’s alive.
It’s made of an organic metal called regenite. In its natural state it’s almost liquid.
A bit like mercury,
James thought.
Not exactly, the metallic crystals within it naturally repel each other, so they are constantly on the move, a bit like magnets with the same pole.
Are you sure it’s safe to fly?
It’s actually very solid; just appears liquid.
What are the blue lines I see?
They feed the hull with an oil called riolih, used to lubricate the crystals. Without it the hull would heat up rapidly.
And…!
Well, it would self-combust.
Doesn’t sound very safe to me,
James thought,
and it still gives me the creeps!
The strain on his concentration was now taking its toll, and his mind was starting to wander. He viewed the
Aurora’s
front defence system and then looked at the cavern wall directly in front
.
He pondered what firing the front multi-directional laser would be like. The sphere moved suddenly to where James was looking.
Kalrea shouted, ‘
No!’
loudly in his mind, instantly waking him but it was too late. James had fired the laser.
A wide beam of orange light struck the cavern wall, sending rocks everywhere. The sound of thunder echoed around the cavern, and there was a noise like torrential rain on a window, made by the rocks showered down on the ship.
The seatra opened up.
‘That hurt!’ Kalrea said, in some discomfort.
James climbed out of the seatra feeling completely drained of energy. He didn’t know what to say.
‘Next time we’d better disable the defence system… and the event horizon drives, or we could be buried here forever,’ Kalrea said very assertively.
‘Sorry,’ James said. ‘Are you all right?’
‘Yes, I’m still in one piece. We’ll try again later. You were actually doing better than I thought you would,’ Kalrea said encouragingly. ‘At least you were safe, the worst you could have done was blown me up!’ she chuckled.
‘I hope that never happens. This seatra is an amazing machine.’
James wandered slowly around the bridge once more, stopping at the low flat black table to the right of the control panels. He noticed some writing inlaid in the centre on the table top.
‘
UPDUV LOPVIWKENIJ OLMIK
,’ James read. ‘Kalrea, I know what some of these words mean. But… I don’t understand. I mean, how do I know? It says something, then holographic table, doesn’t it?’
‘Yes, it does,’ Kalrea said, sounding pleased.
‘The cartridges… I could read the writing on the cartridges. One had komputronic data key written on it. But I’ve never seen writing like that before. How—’
Kalrea interrupted. ‘You were taught our language when you were very young. You probably don’t even remember.’
‘No, I don’t,’ James replied.
‘Qinant young learn the language before they can speak themselves. The seatra can feed the brain information whilst you sleep. You were taught it when you were about three sykals old.’
‘What? Without me knowing?’
‘No, you were aware of it subconsciously at the time. It can even surface in dreams. But of course you were very young. You would have also started to speak Qinant at a very early age; however, Lex and Carol needed to teach you English as soon as they arrived on Earth, so would not have spoken our language since then. Seeing the writing will have triggered the memories. You should be able to read, think and speak Qinant. Try saying something.’
‘But I don’t know how!’
‘Relax! Just think of the writing and speak it. It will come naturally.’
James thought for a moment.
‘I can see the words, but—’
‘I can feel you’re trying too hard,’ Kalrea started to speak in Qinant. ‘Relax. Say the words you’re thinking.’
‘Okay,’ James said, taking a deep breath. ‘What is a—’ James stopped abruptly. He was speaking in Qinant.
‘That’s not bad.’
‘This is amazing,’ he replied, in very rough and broken Qinant. ‘But I don’t understand what Kimlo is.’
‘You were taught the main words you are most likely to use, so of course there are words you won’t know,’ Kalrea said. ‘Kimlo is actually a name; the name of the Qinant who invented the holographic table.’
James ran his hand along one of its edges and over the writing.
‘What is this Kimlo holographic table anyway?’ he questioned in broken Qinant. ‘It looks out of place here and it’s rather low.’
‘Oh… that’s not just any table,’ Kalrea said.
A holographic image of the
Aurora
suddenly formed above it.
‘That’s incredible,’ James said, looking closely at the image, which was floating above the table and rotating slowly. ‘I should have guessed from the name. It looks so real. Like an exact scaled down model of the ship. Can… I touch it?’
‘Of course,’ Kalrea replied.
James tried to place his left hand on the hull of the ship. He let go quickly.
‘It… It feels real… solid!’ he said, surprised.
He touched it once more. When he gripped the edge of the ship it stopped rotating. He lifted it at an angle. Then, the ship started to rotate again around its axis but at the new angle.
‘Incredible… How does it work?’ he enquired.
‘The table is a standard Kimlo holographic generator. The image of the
Aurora
is currently scaled at one millimetre to the metre. It uses a multi source projection system, which allows each pixel to be plotted even when other objects are within the Kimlo table’s projection area, for example your hand, and ultrasonic waves to give you the feeling that the surfaces of the image are solid.’
As James held the ship the port side became transparent, exposing the event horizon drives.
‘It’s so detailed,’ he commented. ‘Carol said that the
Aurora
wasn’t finished when it left Qintaino. From what I’ve seen it looks finished now?’
‘It is, almost. Once I arrived here, I started work on getting the
Aurora
completed and fully functional. Since then I’ve been improving it!’
‘How long has it taken you?’
‘Ten point six-eight Earth years since arriving here.’
‘All that time,’ James was surprised.
‘It’s a big ship,’ Kalrea replied.
‘This may seem a silly question, but how did you do it? I mean you can’t walk and I haven’t met anyone else.’
Kalrea chuckled.
‘I had a little help. You’ve seen one of them already.’
‘What?’ James replied in a confused voice.
‘In the cargo bay, you looked straight at one.’
‘Did I?’ James tried to think back. He twigged ‘That pile of material. Someone was in it.’
‘Not exactly! I’ll introduce you, shall I?’
James studied the holographic image. He was still holding the
Aurora’s
image when the pojin lift arrived. He turned towards the opening door, pulling the image outside of the ellipse marked on the table. It disappeared, startling him. When he looked back at the table, the image was once again rotating slowly in its centre.
James could hear a constant whine emanating from within the lift. The tone changed and a small robot emerged. It had no recognisable front or back, just many articulated arms tucked in neatly around its body, some with what looked like tools attached to them. It hovered above the floor in front of him.