“Touché,” Rich replied, “but you’ve gotta admit, when you got up this morning, you had no idea you’d be crossing into a parallel universe. That’s pretty exciting.”
“This morning, I didn’t even know that sort of technology was possible,” Djanet replied before a sideways smile swept across her lips. “It is pretty exciting. By the way, I’m shutting the gravity off now.”
“Ready.”
Rich nodded before the force that held their boots to the titanium floor suddenly let go. The two post-humans weren’t helpless, however, for their powers of flight allowed them to behave much the way they would as if they were flying on Earth. The Planck platform, however, behaved very differently than it would on Earth, since it was an extremely heavy piece of machinery. It floated up from the replicator from which it had been constructed, allowing Rich and Djanet to guide it with their hands toward the bridge.
Djanet watched as Rich’s eyes suddenly widened, his pupils dilating as his attention focused on an object behind her. She turned her head to see Old-timer floating outside the ship, the sunrays illuminating his body as he peered through the front view screen. “I’m still not used to seeing him with no magnetic field,” she observed.
“Yeah,” Rich replied, “but it’s so, so cool. I want my upgrade.”
She turned to him and smiled. “Me too.”
“You folks ready?” Old-timer asked through their mind’s eyes.
“Yep,” Rich answered. “Stand by. We’re comin’ out to play.”
“Depressurizing,” Djanet informed him.
They ignited their life-saving magnetic cocoons.
As it had in the android ship, the bridge lowered, and Old-timer watched as a nightmarish object from his distant past rematerialized before his eyes: the Planck platform, floating free in the seeming infinity of space, guided by Rich and Djanet and coming in his direction.
“We brought your doohickey,” Rich noted.
“Thank you,” Old-timer replied, grinding his teeth slightly as he looked at the disk. “I really appreciate your help, but I can handle this on my own from here on out.”
“Yeah, the A.I. said you’d say that,” Djanet replied.
“It doesn’t make it any less true,” Old-timer answered. “Listen, we’re terraformers. That’s it. You didn’t sign up for this kind of mission.”
“Neither did you,” Rich countered.
“That’s where you’re wrong, Hoss.” Old-timer sighed regretfully. “Did you ever read that old poem by Coleridge, ‘The Rime of the Ancient Mariner’?”
Rich and Djanet exchanged confused glances before turning back to Old-timer.
“I told you, Old-timer, school was too long ago for me to—”
“I killed an albatross,” Old-timer said. “This is my fate. It’s my responsibility. I have to go.”
“The ancient mariner was abandoned by his crew,” Djanet pointed out, “but we’re your friends. We’d never abandon you.”
“I don’t know why we’re making morbid literary allusions all of the sudden,” Rich interjected, “but I agree with Djanet’s second and third statements. Old-timer, I’m not gonna lie. We want to see an end to all of this insanity as much as anyone, but no matter what happens, we stick together. It’s a strategy that’s gotten us this far, right?”
“Plus, we all got into terraforming because we dreamt of setting foot on distant worlds,” Djanet furthered. She smiled broadly. “Exploration is in our blood. There’s no way we could pass up an opportunity to cross into a new universe.”
Old-timer’s eyes left those of his companions and fell on the silver disk that gleamed almost white in the brilliant sunshine. He remained silent for a moment before patching into communication with James: “James, I’ve rendezvoused with Rich and Djanet. The Planck platform is in position. We’re ready to cross over on your signal.”
11
“Sounds good,” James replied, speaking from the back seat of the professor’s/Trans-human candidate’s simulated car outside of Waves coffee shop in the sim. “Make sure you’re only immersed in Universe 332 for fifteen minutes at the most, whether you see something suspicious or not. The A.I. and I will come in after you if you don’t return by then. Is that affirmative?”
“Affirmative,” Old-timer’s crackling voice and distorted image returned in James’s mind’s eye. “We’re getting a lot of interference here.”
“That’s by design,” James explained. “There’s a coronal mass ejection from the sun, sending a high level of electromagnetic radiation in your direction. It won’t hurt your enhanced body or Rich and Djanet through their own protective fields, but it might give you some cover if android forces are monitoring for disturbances in Planck energy.”