Awakening on Orbis (19 page)

I was wading through the debris, looking for Max, when I saw streams of light materialize in the dust. They rippled before merging into a single point. A moment later, I was staring at two Space Jumpers standing in front of me.

“Not now!” I cried, but the Space Jumpers looked at the destruction around me and worked quickly. One armed his plasma rifle, while the other moved toward me and gripped my forearm.

“What happened here?” he said.

“I don’t know. Let me find out. Give me a minute. Please! Max!”

Max stepped through the dust and saw me standing between the two Space Jumpers. “Please, Max, not like this,” I pleaded. “Try to understand. I never wanted to hurt you.”

Max didn’t say anything. She just stood there amid the debris. Tears streaked the soot that had settled on her face. She lifted her right hand as if to wave good-bye. I didn’t know for sure because I was ripped away before I could respond.

My arrival at the Trust was as uneventful as a solar flare on the surface of the sun. The two Space Jumpers dumped me into my room and left without even a welcome. The stone floor and metal fixtures were an exact copy of the room they had put me in before, the first time I was taken to their comet. I looked up and realized, however, that something was different. This time I had a roommate.

“Of all the rocks in the universe, they have to put me with you?” Switzer grumbled.

I sat on the floor, Max’s image still emblazoned on my mind. “Give me a minute and I’ll call someone to see if they have anything else available, something more suiting a wormhole pirate.”

“At least your sarcasm has gotten better,” Switzer said, and leaned back on his sleeper. He hoisted his huge boots over the edge and let them clunk on the metal as he clamped his thick hands behind his even thicker neck. It was difficult for me to get used to the older Switzer. I had to look carefully, past the scars and muscles, to see the kid I had grown up with. If it wasn’t for his cocky attitude, I don’t know if I would have recognized him at all. “But really,” he went on in his deeper, Switzer-the-man voice. “Thanks. I thought I was going to rot in that awful cell. I owe you one.”

His grateful remark caught me off guard. So much had happened between the two us, and none of it was pleasant. Yet I couldn’t help but glance at him and blame myself for his very existence. “It was the least I could do,” I said without sarcasm.

“Yeah, I’ve been thinking about that. Why
did
you do it, anyway? From what I’ve seen, you had a pretty good thing going on down there. What possessed you to drag me out of prison?”

“I told you already. It’s not fair what they did to us. They made you the way you are. They are responsible for you. They can’t just lock you away. Your actions are just as much their fault as yours.”

“Not sure I see it your way, split-screen. I’ve done a lot of bad things that had nothing to do with them, but thanks all the same.”

“Please stop calling me that.”

“What?”

“Split-screen, Dumbwire, or whatever witty little tag you can come up with. Call me JT or don’t call me anything.”

Switzer paused before muttering, “Sure. Whatever you want. Hey, how did your girlfriend take it?”

I stood up and moved in front of his sleeper. “Do not talk about Max,” I told him. “Ever! Understand that I do not want to be here. I did it to get you out. My goal is to get through this stupid training and then get back to the Rings of Orbis. I need to protect Ketheria. You’re not the only one I feel responsible for. When you’re done with your training, I want you to accept some post in another galaxy, all right? But after you become a Space Jumper, I never want to see you again. Understood?”

“Wow, one minute you’re feeling sorry for me and the next minute you never want to see me again. What’s with that?”

“Nothing that I’m going to tell you,” I said as I turned away.

“Suit yourself,” he replied, and leaned back only to sit right back up again. “Hey, do you have any more of that stuff you gave me back on the rings? I could really use some right now. Just a little. I don’t want to get used to it.”

I reached into my pocket and pulled out the bag of tablets I had made for Switzer. I took a couple from the bag and popped them into my mouth. My head had been killing me ever since I’d arrived. “Here,” I said, and tossed the bag to him. “They’ll do the trick.”

Switzer caught the bag and held it up, admiring it. Then he looked at me and said, “You’ll make a good wife some cycle, split-screen.”

Switzer’s teasing was the least of my concerns. I went to sleep worrying about how they’d gotten to Ganook and woke up wondering what Max was doing. How long was I going to be here?
It couldn’t be that long,
I told myself. Then I remembered slow-time. The Keepers had used it in the Center for Science and Research, and the Trust even mentioned it the first time I was here. Surely they must be using it now. If they wanted me to protect Ketheria, how could I do it from here? All I had to do was finish their little course and I would be done.
Keep an open mind.
That’s what Ketheria had said. How hard could that be?

Switzer’s sleeper was closed, but I could still hear him snoring. I pushed back the lid of my own sleeper and stared at the metal door. A soft blue light lined the perimeter. I figured some sort of computer chip controlled all the doors on this ship, or rock, or whatever it was that they called this thing. I glanced over at Switzer. He was out cold. Since no one said we had started training yet, I figured now was a good a time as any to do a little exploring.

I slid off my sleeper, stuffed my feet into my boots, and went to the door. I pushed into the blue light and was surprised to find a rudimentary locking device, which I merely nudged open. The last time I was on this thing, the Trust had kept me locked up using a far more elaborate security system.
It’s not like I could leave here, anyway,
I thought as the door disappeared. Outside, I dragged my fingers along the stony wall and slipped down the corridor.

I had no idea where I was going, so I followed the polished support girders that reflected the frigid glow from caged lights mounted above my head every meter or so. It was cold, and I could smell a slight medicinal scent lingering in the air.

I turned right down another corridor.
The place is bigger than I thought.
I found a short set of stairs at the end and climbed them into a small atrium. I stepped toward a large door at the far end, and it disappeared. Once inside, I found myself looking out at the stars through an enormous glass dome. It was some sort of observation deck, like the one we had on the
Renaissanc
e.
I loved that place. I spent so many cycles staring out at the stars, wondering what my new home would be like.

I went up to the glass to look out over the ship, but what I saw really wasn’t a ship at all. It was just a big rock — a huge comet falling through space. Behind me, a brilliant white tail of dust and ice lit up the empty blackness, and it was
empty.
There were no planets on the horizon, no nearby stars to light up the ship. But worse than that, the most glaring absence of all was that of the Rings of Orbis. I searched everywhere, running from side to side of the observation deck, but I could find no sign of it.
Where was I?
Everything I knew was gone. The home I had struggled to accept was nowhere to be found.
What had I done?
The enormity of my decision settled on my shoulders and forced me to the ground. I had felt alone in my life before, but never like this. Sitting there, on top of the comet, with nothing in sight, I felt
more
than alone. I felt dead.

“Do I really snore that bad?” Switzer asked.

I opened my eyes. I was still in the observation deck. I must have fallen asleep on the floor. “What time is it?” I mumbled, looking up at Switzer. There was a strange device hovering near his head, a golden light suspended over a metal spike like a torch.

“Um . . . you got something here,” Switzer whispered, pointing at the corner of his mouth. I reached up and wiped away the drool that must have escaped while I was sleeping.

“Thanks. Who’s that?”

“Him?” Switzer said, thumbing at the thing floating in the air. “That cheery little fellow is our escort. I think we’re going to meet the rest of our playgroup.”

“What are you doing here?”

“I didn’t want to start my first cycle of school without my new buddy.”

“Enough with the sarcasm. Do you have any of those tablets? My head is killing me.”

Switzer tossed me a couple tablets and said, “Try to suck it up a little and use those only when it hurts. I don’t know how long we’re going to be on this icicle.”

“So you know where we are?”

“I do now,” he replied, walking over to the edge of the observation deck.

“Orientation is now assembling. Your presence is required. Please follow me,” the floating thingy announced as its light flashed red.

“Ah, the universal color of danger. How long do we plan on letting them wait?” Switzer said, turning to me.

“I don’t,” I told him, and sprang to my feet. “Time to be a Space Jumper.”

We followed our escort down several corridors before the light led us to a small lift suspended over a huge open area. The place was so big that I think I could have flown a ring shuttle through it. Directly across from our lift were a couple of enormous cylinders like two giant spacescopes standing next to each other, balanced on their lenses. I squinted to see what they were made of, but the black metal was punctured with an assortment of bright yellow, green, and white lights that made it hard to tell. I could see that each pillar was constructed from odd-size sections stacked one upon the other and that the sections were simply too numerous to count.
Theodore would have tried to count them, though,
I thought.

Then I heard some unseen motor clunk into action, and the two massive pillars began to rotate as we descended to the floor. I watched the enormous structures peel back and the room we were in flood with a brilliant blue light that hung at the center of the next room.

“This is what I call an entrance,” Switzer remarked as we both stepped off the lift. There was another alien already on the floor, watching the pillars part. I elbowed Switzer and he glanced at our new companion.

“We aren’t the only new kids at school,” he said.

We followed the red light into the next room. It was circular, lined with balconies. It was difficult to see all the way to the top because the light source was blinding near the room’s apex. I shielded my eyes and discovered rows and rows of Space Jumpers awash in the harsh light and staring down at us.

Switzer was gawking as well. “Guess being a softwire ain’t as special as you thought,” he whispered.

I guess it wasn’t. I knew that all Space Jumpers were softwires and from what I’d understood, it was an especially rare ability. But when I walked past the cylinders and looked up, I almost felt common.

Switzer, the new guy, and I walked under a huge egglike structure suspended by a thick metal cable at the center of everything. The thing must have been the size of a small spaceship. In fact, I actually wondered if it
was
a spaceship of some sort.

“Well, I’m impressed,” Switzer said.

“Me too,” I replied.

The other guy, an alien with thin tentacles that sprouted from his head, his arms, and even his back, did not respond. Instead, his many tentacles cautiously flicked about as if they were licking the air.

“What are we supposed to do?” I whispered to Switzer.

“Nothing. At least that’s what I normally do when the odds are like this. Let them make the first move,” he replied.

The egg thing started to descend, and Switzer and I moved back. Circling the center of the egg was a metal support mounted with half a dozen spotlights. Three of them fired up and focused on us. The two giant cylinders slowly swung closed as the egg began to speak.

“The Source has bestowed its most important gift upon you,” a voice boomed from the egg. I recognized that voice. It was one of the Trust. “Do you accept this gift?”

“Yes!” cried the alien next to us.

“Absolutely,” Switzer exclaimed.

I looked at Switzer. I guess this was it. I was going to do it. I was doing it for Ketheria, but I was also doing this for me in some weird way. I was finally able to make that “choice” I was always grumbling about.

“Yes,” I added, with much less enthusiasm than the others.

“Your softwire ability is a prerequisite, but your Source is the admission into our family,” the Trust continued. “Do you accept these terms?”

“Yes!” cried the other alien.

“You bet,” Switzer added.

“What does that mean?” I whispered to Switzer. “Source? What source? I don’t get it. What terms?”

“Just say yes, split-screen. There is no pamphlet to read, and I don’t think they pay for the ride home if you want out now.”

“Yes,” I replied, looking up at the egg. I couldn’t believe I was taking advice from Switzer.

“A Space Jumper is nothing without his family. His family understands his gift, and his family shares his unquestionable belief in the trinity,” the egg said.