Page 36 of Experimental Voyage
“They love peace as much as they adore violence, and they will lay down their lives to make sure Squeakers and her kin never experience fear. If we involve the Crimson Feet, we will have nothing to worry about. If you upgrade from this beauty and offer her to the Crimson Feet, we won’t even have to pay them for the work. They will use it as part of their yearly rite of passage.”
That got Waldren thinking. “Camellia, the Deltans are capable of handling quarantine situations, so assuming we manage to gate back to regular space, we can take you there first. That’ll let you be in a more restive environment. Our quarantine quarters are less than ideal.”
“We don’t need them often,” Alban explained. “So it would spare you a great deal of misery.”
Aware Squeakers adored Palta and would be lonely without her furry companion, I understood the necessity of my next words, however much I disliked it. “Can you keep Squeakers with Palta?”
“Of course,” he replied, and he offered a small smile. “I don’t know how long Squeakers will live because we don’t know much about her species, but she’s more than welcome to stay with Palta.”
“They get along so well, and Palta would be sad,” I replied.
“Palta would survive with minimal complaining should you take your bird with you, but it might be safer for her to stay with Palta for a while. I don’t know what the Deltans have in mind for your training. Knowing them, they might just toss you into an exploratory group and teach you on the fly. Little prepares someone more than a trial by fire. They’ll keep you as safe as possible, but not completely safe.” Waldren wrinkled his nose at that. “They might not, considering this incident. Only time will tell.”
“Time will tell.”
It always did.
It tookWaldren three hours to check over his ship for damage, which was enough time for the Veloc to make use of the scanning systems to get a full chart of the area. One of the planets proved to be a mere hour away, but considering the behavior of the shiftgem gate, beyond getting some long-range telescopephotography of the world, which showed every sign of being habitable, he decided we were best off not testing our luck.
The gate had gone through the effort of porting us to it, so he wanted to see what was on the other side.
As he didn’t have a proper pen for Squeakers, I held her on my lap for the jump. The bird enjoyed the attention, made herself comfortable, and waited with admirable patience.
Waldren remained tense throughout the entire process of preparing the ship for the jump, and when it was time to depart, he eased the ship out of the gate’s hold. The gravitational forces released the moment he engaged the engines, which implied the shiftgem gate itself was somehow sentient.
The Veloc had discussed the gate’s probable sentience in hushed whispers and a certain amount of awe.
No one could definitively prove it, butsomethingpossessed sentience. Nobody on board believed our trip to Melody had been a coincidence. We still made guesses as to the why. I preferred to think that the shiftgem gate had spotted an opportunity to protect the nearby planets, putting their safeguarding in the Veloc’s capable claws. If I were someone inclined to try to profit off such a peaceful world, I would think twice before testing the feathered murder machines.
I valued my life. I supposed the greedy might not.
“Well, here goes nothing,” Waldren muttered, and he accelerated the ship in the direction of the shiftgem gate.
Like our first jump, white light enveloped the ship. Unlike our first jump, no alarms screamed, and once the glow faded, we emerged into empty space. The ship drifted to a halt. Waldren pressed a few buttons on his chair’s armrest before saying, “We’re clear. I’d like the feathered menaces on board this vessel to start working the star charts while I do a check of all systems. I will be moving the ship a safe distance from the gate in case it is a known gate with multiple destinations.”
Within ten minutes, after doing a basic scan and check of the systems, Waldren moved the ship a safe distance away from the shiftgem gate. Alban took over the console controlling the primary scanning software. “The gate is not registered in the system,” he announced.
“I’d say we’re set for life, but in reality, we’ll walk away with a sliver of the percentage of discovering a pair of shiftgem gates making sure nobody screws around with those worlds.” Waldren heaved a sigh. “Herserael, see if the gate can be locked.”
Shiftgem gates could be locked? Puzzled, I observed the Veloc as he went to one of the consoles on the other side of the bridge and began tapping on the screen. Within a few minutes, he replied, “The gate can be locked.”
“Okay. How can a gate be locked?” I asked, gesturing at the pulsing, colored gate hanging in space nearby. “I don’t understand.”
“Shiftgem gates can interface with ships. We aren’t surehow, but link-enabled ships can sometimes communicate with shiftgem gates. It’s usually yes or no states, but some gates can be locked. Gates that can be locked accept an input code from a ship, register that code, and will not activate again until that code is entered,” he explained. “It’s like a password for shiftgem gates. Most gates won’t or can’t lock. But that just plays to the belief these gates are sentient. If we lock the gate, the worlds we want to protect are a great deal safer—and we can limit who can get to that sector of space without a generational ship.” Waldren stepped away from the console and rubbed his hands together. “This will make our lives easier yet more difficult.”
Alban turned towards me and said, “We will still be paid quite well for having discovered the gate, but as we’re claiming protectorship over all the worlds this gate leads to under conservatory and research rules, we’ll have a lot of paperworkto handle. We should agree to monitor the space for rescue, Waldren. That will cover most of our bases.”
“I was already planning on that. If the Veloc clans work together, we can figure out an arrangement. Do you have a lock on our location?”
After a moment, the Veloc grunted. “We’re within Veloci space, although we’re skirting Cremoran and Deltan territory. We’re a week from a Deltan gate, which will take us to their home world. That should put us at three weeks from getting home.”
“We’ll be a little late, but if we’re that close to a Deltan gate, then we’re in comm range.”
“We are.”
“Once we’re away from the gate, get a comm going with the Deltans, inform them we’ll be bringing Camellia over, and that we need to quarantine due to a new world discovery.” Turning to me, Waldren said, “You’ll be grateful for dodging the Veloc’s quarantine zone and the paperwork generally required. You’ll have to sign some, but the Deltans can help with that. You’ll find them to be nice albeit strangehomo sapiens.”
I raised a brow at that. “In the universe’s general standard, aren’t allhomo sapiensstrange?”
