FSE

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Chapter five

“Who you calling a pinhead?" Patrick asked defensively, his eyes squinted and conical pink head pointed in a manner decidedly similar to a bowling pin. Laurie let out that adorable giggle and threw her head back laughing. That was always her favourite line of the cartoon. Elizabeth and Marie couldn't help themselves, overtaken by the contagious laughter, and joined her.

The trio was seated on the sofa in the centre of the living room, the holographic television affixed to the far end of the wall. The clock above the hovering image read 8:18 PM, though one could estimate a similar time of day based on the overwhelming darkness visible through the sliding glass door leading to the backyard. The snow and sleet flurried against the glass surface, the distinctive frigidity of a February night in Seattle settling into the comfortable abode. Time, so it would seem, had one of the oddest effects on the little girl: Precisely when the clock struck nine o'clock, Laurie would be impacted with a wave of exhaustion. Either Elizabeth or Marie would then carry the sleeping six year old to bed. This cycle was everlasting, so it would seem, and it had gone on for at least a year, though its origin remained mysterious to the parents.

Nine o'clock struck, and like always, the daughter succumbed to effects of the melatonin secreted by her pituitary gland and, by 9:01, was fast asleep. Elizabeth carefully shuffled her arms under the girl's pyjama-covered form and hoisted her up, slowly walking to her bedroom. She set her down in the twin-sized bed and tucked her in the covers, kissing her goodnight and gently closing the door. She came back to her wife and huddled next to her on the sofa, siphoning her warmth. Marie resembled her daughter almost perfectly, with long, curly chocolate hair and lively blue eyes. She and Elizabeth had emigrated from France a decade ago so that the latter could work at the Hanford Site facility, and their daughter had come about six years ago via subtle genetic manipulation which allowed the pair to have a child from their own gametes. Though slightly more expensive than the traditional sperm donation method, medical technology of the tail end of the twenty-first century had allowed the two females to have a child that was genetically theirs.

“Isn't she a little cabbage?" Marie said pleasantly.

“That she is," her wife replied with a smile. “I'm going to miss her so much when I'm gone."

“I know, dear. But that's all the way in August; as close as it sounds, it's still plenty of time to see her."

“You're right," she sighed. “I don't know. I just… I don't even know how long I'll be gone. I won't even arrive at Neptune until 2107, and then, well, I don't know. Three years from now I'll be in the bulk, riding across the fifth dimension to another galaxy billions of light years away. Assuming we can even find a habitable planet, that's still years I'll miss with her before I can get back to Earth. And you."

Marie entwined her fingers with hers and brought her into a kiss. “And we'll be waiting for you with open arms once you arrive."

“And what will you tell Laurie while I'm gone? When I'm missing for god-knows how many years?" Elizabeth's heart began to sink.

“That mommy loves her very much," Marie replied, lovingly tightening her grip around the woman's fingers. “That she's coming back."

***

The Space Needle wasn't the only distinguishing feature of Seattle. Long known to the rest of the United States as “one of those hippie towns"- as several more conservative folk likened it to- it was, indeed, one of the more socially liberal places in the country. Gender roles were relaxed; most drugs were legalised, although only used by a fleeting minority of the population; homo-and bisexuality were not seen as abnormal; Augments were, for the most part, treated as equal citizens; and racial tension was typically at a minimum. Violent crime rates here were some of the lowest in the nation, and people generally got along with one another quite well. In addition, the environment surrounding the city (or the entire Washington state, for that matter) contained a pleasant sense of forestry and connection to the outdoors, despite the city's immense technological scene. Seattle did, however, possess one notable if not egregious distinguishing blemish which could be easily differentiated relative to the rest of the country: The city was the undisputed U.S. capital of suicide. Even Alaska, what with its winter-length veil of darkness and incessant snowfall, had fewer suicide rates by over nine percent in the current year, something which both baffled and alarmed many contemporary psychologists. Many scientists blamed it on the “high school bullshit" of the modern public education system, which exacerbated student stress levels and diminished learning of real-world, hands-on material; others, of course, blamed it on the now-irrefutable phenomenon of global warming (a significant portion of which originated from humanity's ravenous environmental degradation), an understandable assertion given the copious rainfall and incessant cloudy darkness seemingly affixed over the state of Washington, which only grew worse as time progressed from the twenty-first to the twenty-second century.

Most victims of the plague of Seattle suicide were, predictably, students, the majority of whom fell between the years of fifteen and thirty two. Suicide fences had been installed along most bridges and walkways, with the intent being to prevent any depressed or dejected student from leaping to their deaths. They always found a way, however. Typically with guns or poison, people always found a way to end their lives when they believed they were no longer fit to reside in the world of the living.

Maria Lee was one such fellow. As Miles drove home, he knew he was going to find himself in a miserable situation. He had already picked up the beer on the way home; that was what he needed, wasn't it? Alcohol, to soothe the pain? It hadn't worked the past three years; perhaps, maybe this one time, it would. As he exited his electric car- a stubby little beetle, maybe two and a half metres lengthwise and one and half sideways- he arrived at the quiet gloom that was his apartment. It was a nice place, certainly, and physically it was very well-equipped for a single man to reside in, what with a two-story floor layout and ample breathing room. It did, however, retain a drab and dark look to it, the windows on the sides and glistening solar panels extending from the roof being the only real sources of light able to escape the horizon of darkness.

It was raining heavily, though he cared little, simply flipping up the collar on his trench coat and grabbing the twelve-pack of glass bottles from the passenger seat. At around eight o'clock at night, the traffic had been eroded to a minimum and the sky was black, occasionally illuminated by a bolt of lightning, vastly outperforming the yellow of the electric sodium streetlights. He walked across the wet sidewalk feeling the rain patter on his coat, and quickly arrived at the stairway leading to his home. He jiggled the keys in his pocket, producing them and thrusting the metal instrument into the lock, eliciting a strong click from the clumsy lock. The heavy burgundy door creaked open and he swiftly trotted inside, hanging his coat on the rack, and went to the kitchen.

The kitchen was a tad small, though it had a quaint appearance, what with the wooden cabinets above the oven and polished countertops, the refrigerator and stove each occupying separate but adjacent nooks. Miles reached into a cabinet above the stove and retrieved a can of pork and beans. Shit food, he thought, but it was tasty and provided him with a warm belly; besides, after work, he wanted few things more than a warm belly and a warm bed. He poured the contents into a pot and heated them up for a few minutes, swiftly producing a blue ceramic bowl and dispensing the now-heated contents into it. He took a seat at the table and began spooning his meal, adding a pinch of shredded cheese from the refrigerator to liven up the flavour of the food. His mother would've wanted him to pray before eating, to thank the Lord for His generosity. Miles, however, found his faith profoundly lacking (“I don't believe in that shit!" he recalled yelling to her after an embarrassing incident in church during his teen years) and, presently, decided his rebellion would best be toast off with a drink. He thumbed one of the bottles of the twelve-pack until the cap popped off and alighted on the tile with a pink, swiftly downing the bottle of lager. And another. And another.

When he traversed the stairs he recalled there being eight bottle caps on the floor, one of the attached bottles still in his hand. Miles arrived at the master bedroom and immediately sighed, his eyes filling with tears. He knew what he was going to do, and he also knew that he could indeed stop himself should it have been necessary, but he did it anyway. He walked towards the master bathroom and opened the door, looking dejectedly at the bathtub. Though he presently saw the alabaster bathtub lying there spotlessly and glistening a pearlescent white, in his mind it was just as blood-drenched as three years before. Maria lay there with her back against the curved porcelain surface, her neck craning and half of her head resting on the surface; the other half, however, was lying in the bathtub, brain matter and blood and scattered fibres of hair removed during impact joining it.

In her hand lay a ten millimetre magnum revolver, rigor mortis ensuring that her small fingers were clutched tightly around the weapon. Her belly was distended, livor mortis having set in such that her body looked disproportionately swollen and mauve-red around the bottom. Maria's would-be wavy black hair was drenched with viscous blood, as was the dark Hispanic skin around her young face. She wore her wedding dress, long and white with the slight puffiness that such a garment is known for. Around her dry chocolate eyes were trails of mascara running down her face along with the distinctive salinized, dusty alluvium of dried tears, intermixed with semi-wet trails of blood seeping from her head. Along the faux granite countertop to the right of her body was a neatly folded note with a black pen alongside it, although he paid it little attention upon first observation of its presence.

Three years ago to the day this was: February eighteenth, 2104. Miles still remembered every part of it. He fruitlessly attempted resuscitation, knowing full well that she was already beyond the horizon of death; called the police; waited in agony. Two days later- February twentieth, 2101- the forensics police had officially ruled it a suicide based on Miles' alibi (he was at the NASA Hanford Site at the time), the lack of evidence suggesting forced entry to the home, the self-induced trajectory of the bullet, and the antimony-infused gunpowder residue on Maria's body. The motive, however, was something that was all too clear. Upon his request, the police commissioner returned to him the suicide note. It took him two full days to bring himself to read it, and he hadn't touched it since. He still remembered every letter, every smudge of every tear on its worn surface, clear as day.

_ _

Miles,

I'm so sorry. I've been implanted with something I cannot go through with. I see no way out. This isn't your fault. I'm so sorry. Had I done this sooner it would have saved everyone a lot of pain. I love you with all my heart. May God have mercy on my soul.

-Maria

They had married at the turn of the century. Maria, an engineer at a local computer repair shop, was walking home only a year after their marriage. Near a derelict alleyway, a man assaulted her with a knife. He remembered all the tears, all the crying and weeping and confessions of regret and agony of that night. He tried his damnedest to help her through it, though his own heart was pierced by the sordid reality of what happened to his wife on that cold, rainy night.

She was raped.

The Washington police department was adamant that they would apprehend the offender, though he slipped through the legal system's grasp and fled. Their relationship remained strong, however, until she discovered that she was pregnant. Overjoyed at the welcome and unexpected news, she travelled to a fertility clinic to have the child routinely examined and its gender determined. It had no trace of Miles' DNA. Miles was taken aback and disappointed, though he ultimately suggested that they could raise the child as their own; Maria wouldn't have to that, and to be frank, she was insulted that he even suggested such a thing.

He then offered that, if she was so opposed to the baby, then an abortion would be appropriate to have performed. Maria again chastised him heavily for the suggestion, the mere mention of it upsetting her unwavering sensibilities. She reasoned that the abortion process was tantamount to child murder; Miles reasoned otherwise. Ultimately, however, two months after the confirmation, Maria found a way out of her conflicting torment. It lay clutched in her small, cold hand, five bullets still loaded inside the chamber. One bullet was enough to claim both victims' lives, though he didn't really consider the premature foetus a “child" yet; however depressing it was to lose the potential child, it hardly met the specifications of a living, breathing, thinking and choosing child, though that did little to boost his collapsing spirits. It still added to the pain.

Three years after the incident, to the day, Miles presently stood in the doorway staring at the empty bathtub, knowing full well that it wasn't always as picturesque as it appeared now. With eight beers in him, he was unable to cope as he wished he could, the alcohol only serving to amplify the misery and the regret and the powerlessness. He broke down in tears and leaned down into the countertop where the suicide note had been placed three years prior. Why hadn't he tried to save her? Why couldn't have gotten off work sooner? Why didn't he talk to her and pull her through this? It was his fault; his entire goddamn fault. The poor woman wore her wedding dress during the moment of death. He remembered her jovially discussing what she thought heaven would be like, how people liked to where their best clothes there.

Ten, nine, eight, seven…

In self-directed rage he blindly threw the bottle against the mirror, shattering both it and the bottle, scattering beer droplets across his shirt; he could no longer stand to view himself. Through the matrix of glass fractures permeating the mirror's reflective surface, stained with the effervescent brown-orange lager he had just thrown upon it, he no longer had to. Dejectedly, he let himself fall with his back slumped against the bathtub- exactly the same area in which Maria had taken her own life. His mind flooded with images from their relationship, of him and the girl four years younger than him. At the tail end of college they met; he earned a PhD in engineering, her, a master's degree in the same field; married; died. He was only thirty nine years old now, and already it felt like he was dead. Perhaps that bullet she fired claimed more than just her own life; it had claimed his as well. And now, in only six months he would be leaving Earth and all of its problems, just as she had. At least he cared about the people he left behind.

Six, five, four… Main engine is a-go. Confirm start-up sequence. Main engine primed for ignition, standby.

Miles let himself sob until he fell asleep on the cold bathroom tile. The silence in his home was deafening, like the sound of the rocket engines he would hear in just a short while. Such a short while until he left everything.

Three, two, one…

***

“Ignition!" the female controller said over the comm-line. The claw-like latches holding the rocket in place disconnected and sprung back towards the walls. The massive alabaster cylinder ejected a plume of marigold plasma from its fusion engines, the behemoth slowly lifting itself out of the launch chamber via the Newtonian reaction. Quickly it accelerated and thrust into the sky.

Catherine was thrown back in her seat, the g-forces compacting her organs enough to make her nauseous. She felt the spacesuit squeeze around her chest and legs, keeping blood pressure at an optimum level throughout her body. A brief crash of shock and extreme shakiness made her feel as though the Aurora was being ripped in half, and she saw a volcanic plume of vapour explode across the shaking viewscreen ahead of her. Only when the fog of her breath slightly obscured the nanoglass viewscreen of her helmet did she realise that she was panting.

“There goes Mach-one," Harper, the biologist, wheezed, his organs suffering from the same compactification as everyone else's. The draconic engines roared over his weak voice, and only Catherine's sensitive canine ears were really able to completely decipher what he was saying.

“Mach-one, confirm," Phillip said through the spaceplane's intercom. He had been installed in the form of a physical body- one of the blocky, faceless, vaguely humanoid security robots which guarded the gate to the Hanford Site. “Stage one separation in three, two, one…"

Another crash rocketed through the Aurora's metal frame and the acceleration only grew worse, smashing the Border collie even deeper into her seat, the buckles affixed to her suit only straining harder to keep her still; her blue merle fur bristled against the bulky white spacesuit's mimetic nanofabric. The lower part of the rocket disconnected via explosive bolts and fell away from the spacecraft as they rocketed past the stratosphere.

“Confirm clean separation," Phillip spoke, his calm voice oddly soothing and relatively naturalistic and human-like. “Initiating spin manoeuvre." The rocket began rotating slowly around its axis to provide it with greater stability on its trajectory. The rotation also served to shear the atmosphere in a gentler fashion, leading to a smaller coefficient of drag and consequently higher velocity and efficiency.

“All engines look good, folks!" the robot announced in a surprisingly cheery human voice. “Please keep your arms and legs inside the vehicle at all times, and we'll be on our way shortly."

“Did he just make a joke?" Miles asked.

“Yes," Lareau replied with a strained wheeze. “It… it is good to have humour in times like these."

“Prepare for stage two separation in three, two, one…" Phillip returned indifferently.

The explosive bolts fired and the central body of the rocket disconnected from the Aurora, falling back towards Earth's surface. Catherine's skeleton was jarred by another impact but was immediately replaced by a forward lurch in her seat, her stomach leaning forwards suddenly in the opposite direction, the buckles straining to keep her in place. Her arms and legs flung out in response to their inertia but, unlike what her Earthly experience had taught her would happen, they did not fall back down. They were in free fall and had almost entirely escaped Earth's tyrannical gravitational field. She looked past her helmet to the spacecraft's viewscreen, where the pleasant blue of the thermosphere bled away, slowly filling the screen with the cold blackness of space. The white pinpricks of light of the greater galaxy beyond began to fill the screen.

“Woooh," Miles exclaimed from the pilot seat. “Everyone still alive back there?"

Harper gave a wheezy cough. “Yeah, I'm holding on."

“Same," Elizabeth replied curtly.

“I can't really be injured except by extreme kinetic energy or heat application-"

“Yeah," Miles chuckled sarcastically, “I wasn't really asking you, Phillip. You're made of graphene."

Miles and Catherine were in the pilot and co-pilot seats, respectively, at the front of the craft. Lareau and Harper were behind them in their own equivalent seats, though they had access to the system panels on the walls of the craft; Phillip's blocky body was affixed to the back wall near the airlock. The interior of the Aurora was quite sizeable given its speed and sophistication, with the same geometry of a commercial airplane cockpit but a little wider and around twice as long, with the airlock in the back of the ship and the gunmetal walls interspersed with electronic control panels. Given that its only real purpose was crew transport- along with very limited cargo transport (approximately ten square metres was available behind the seats)-its sizeable interior was the logical choice.

“Alexeyevna?" Miles asked using her surname, trying to avoid showing any friendly bias towards her. “You alright?"

She hadn't even begun to adapt to the microgravity yet- the simulator was one thing, but this was real. She was dangling in a precarious orbit around Earth and the ship was hurtling away from the only home anyone had ever known. “Yeah," she said in between pants, slowly regaining her senses. “I'm alright."

“Good," he replied, opening up a blue holographic map of their trajectory. “All control feeds are going manual."

“You have manual," Catherine returned, watching the computer screen flash pleasant verdant, indicating system stability.

“Fuel cells one, two, three and four all reading one hundred percent."

“One hundred percent confirm."

“Good." Miles flicked a few switches above his head, priming the reaction control system. “Dual fusion engines reading one hundred percent. Emergency chemical rocket system reading one hundred. Reaction control system reading positive. I am nosing us down to face Tour de Force docking station, standby."

Planted all along the body, tiny thrusters puffed tiny breaths of high-velocity plasma through them, and when they were coordinated they provided very precise attitude control even in a vacuum- considered collectively, the jets were known as the “reaction control system." As Miles nosed the centre-stick downwards, the jets along the dorsal side of the Aurora near the cockpit flared, gently nosing the vehicle down towards the planet.

Through the viewscreen, as well as the flat nanoglass ports above centre of the crew compartment, Catherine could see Earth's big blue marble looming into focus. The planet's girth filled the viewscreen; considering their “mild" orbital height of four hundred and twelve kilometres, it was conceivable that the planet would dominate their view for the short-term.

“Beautiful," she said. “Only a few people ever get to experience this in their lives."

“It is nice, isn't it?" Lee said, flipping another switch above his head. “Our perfect blue marble; I feel so bad leaving it behind." He was reminded how Maria left him behind in a similar way, and presently he felt a twinge of sadness go through his chest.

“What feels bad," Harper spoke, “Are there seats. Why do they all have a little hole cut out in the back?"

“Because," Lareau spoke in her calm French voice, “One of our crew has a tail. We all need to have equally-accessible equipment, and that includes seats."

Of course, Harper shouted in his head. Everything always has to be about the damn dog! During training he found the dog to be far too polite, and everyone seemed to pay her far too much attention, something which seemed ineffably suspicious. His verbal reply was a simple disappointed snort; as much as he disdained it, this was the crew, and he would have to live with that simple fact. He disconnected the oxygen line from his helmet and removed it, feeling slightly better able to breath with the spacecraft's open atmosphere.

“You can take your helmets off, if you like," Phillip said in response to Harper's actions. “We won't be docking for another eleven minutes." Everyone did so promptly, thought Catherine's was more complicated than the other astronauts'. Her helmet was elongated to fit her muzzle and consequently required more atmospheric latches than the others', bringing with it a longer affixation and detachment time; the helmet even had special elongated sections on the top for her canine ears to fit into. With her stubby tetradactyl hands veiled in thick gloves it only increased the difficulty in unfastening the latches, though she did eventually remove it. Stowing the helmet on her lap, she looked through the viewport above her head and saw a glimmer of reflected light. Upon squinting she realised that it was a space station- from this distance it looked like a toy, but she remembered the briefings back on Earth.

One hundred and twenty metres in diameter, the Tour de Force resembled a semi-circular snowflake with a hollowed midsection. Two spokes connected a circular section in the centre- the docking station- to the greater hexagonal ring structure, one on the north and south ends of the circle, respectively. Affixed along the ring were multiple large cubic components containing supplies and fuel cells for the mission, numbering eighteen in total with three of them mounted along each edge of the hexagon. Each of them were black, their outer surfaces composed of a durable membrane of light-absorbing compounds which collectively functioned as a multifaceted solar cell. Affixed to each vertex of the ring were a dual set of very powerful fusion engine cores. On the exterior of the docking station she could make out the distinctive blocky appearance of two Hercules cargo transports, one on the west and east quadrants, respectively. Affixed to the far end of the docking station Catherine could see the curvaceous white and black metal of another Aurora; their Aurora was to dock above that one.

They went through the standard checklist of any spaceborne expedition- fuel, hydraulic lines, air pressure, and so on. Upon completion, the snowflake of the Tour de Force began to dominate the viewports above them. “We are approaching Tour de Force," Miles said, flipping switches above his head. When they returned a positive chime, the screen in front of him displayed a targeting pattern. “Four hundred metres out; docking sequence initiated." He nodded towards Catherine. “Guide us in."

The blue merle collie let out a breath and unfastened her buckles. She used the rungs on the ceiling to push against for locomotion as she floated out of her seat and moved towards the back of the ship, her short silver hair feeling floating alone weightlessly. Opposite the wall to Phillip's vaguely humanoid body was the targeting computer for docking. It resembled a video game to a degree, consisting of an electronic screen projecting a virtual reality image of the space behind the craft. A green circle projected along the middle of the frame represented the airlock hatch. Thirty two targeting squares were placed equidistantly along the circumference of the circle, representing the latch slots; in order to dock properly, all latches would have to be secure and the circle and targeting squares would have to be perfectly aligned. The procedure left little room for error lest the atmospheric seals be ruptured. She primed the targeting computer and grasped the joystick.

“One hundred metres out," Miles said, “I am handing control over to you."

“Roger," she shakily replied, “I have the stick." She saw the docking station through the camera- a small metallic circle only three metres wide. She nosed the throttle forward to her left, gently increasing the ship's speed to only one metre per second. They were fifty metres distant now. As they neared closer the lights on the docking platform lit up, revealing the pristine white surface of the Tour de Force. The docking bay opened and its spider-like latches automatically extended outwards.

“Twenty metres," the pilot said.

She manoeuvred the craft using the joystick. As she made course corrections, the RCS thrusters fired and finely altered the ship's angle, each time by no less than a degree. This had to be perfect. Her stomach lurched with every encroaching metre and with every minute acceleration going through the ship via the RCS thrusters. The circle aligned and glowed with a brighter green, overlapping with the docking hatches perfectly. The targeting squares drifted into focus around each one of the latches.

Two metres. “Initiating target lock."

“Nice and slow," Lareau said. “Take us in nice and slow."

One metre. Had she had sweat glands, she would have been drenched in the stuff. If she was misaligned even infinitesimally the airlock faced risk of depressurisation, easily killing everyone aboard the shuttle.

With a fidgeting thumb she depressed the switch atop the joystick and a short hum vibrated through the spacecraft, followed by a gentle bump, and for a split second the collie snapped her eyes shut and hoped for nothing more. The spidery latches snapped into place around the Aurora's airlock, echoing a quick series of metallic thumps throughout the hull. The computer chirped a positive tone, as if happily acknowledging the attachment, and she opened her eyes.

“Target locked," Catherine spoke shakily, only then realising that she was panting.

“Locked," Miles said from the pilot's seat. “Confirm hermetic seal; good job." He unfastened his latches and floated out of his pilot's chair, smiling towards her as he reached for his helmet. Lareau patted her on the shoulder and smiled.

“Good job, Alexeyevna," she said. The French produced her helmet and fitted it over her head. Her sanguine hair- now cut shorter to make it appropriate for the mission- fit into the helmet smugly and framed her face nicely.

Catherine grinned and released a pent up sigh of relief, reaching for her own elongated helmet and fitting it over her head. Her tail was wagging, which awkwardly tugged on the thick nanofabric pants of her spacesuit. “Lock helmets," she said pleasantly, smiling with abandon. Harper simply rolled his eyes and begrudgingly nodded her way. She floated to the left of the targeting computer and found the airlock hatch controls, an array of electronic switches planted in the wall above a red pull-down lever. She deactivated the hatch lockout and synchronised the atmospheres between the Tour de Force and the Aurora. Receiving a go-ahead from the computer, she pulled down the level and watched the airlock pneumatically slide open. The slightly colder air of the Tour de Force fogged their helmets, although the spacesuits' internal homeostasis systems- IHS- quickly neutralised the obstructive vapours.

Lareau, Harper, and Miles all floated through the airlock and onto the colossal mothership. Miles smiled at her as he passed, and there was something alluring in his verdant eyes, though that thought was quickly overridden when she heard the clunky, robotic sounds of Phillip's blocky body unlatching from the opposite wall a few metres ahead of her. The central slit in his head- his equivalent of an eye- began to glow a very slight blue, in sharp contrast to his jet black metal body. He extended his blocky tridactyl arm and proffered a handshake.

“Thank you for not misaligning the hatch locks and killing us!" the robot said cheerfully, his “eye" glowing with a brighter and happier shade of blue. She awkwardly accepted his handshake with her thickly-gloved paw; he sounded like a person, but the way he spoke mouthlessly, through the speakers in his faceless head, unnerved her, as did his peculiar sociality.

“What are your social interaction parameters, Phillip?"

“Completely friendly and completely honest, of course!"

The dog cocked her head to the side curiously and stared at him, and the robot could see her ears go through the same confused motions. He wondered what she was so dumbfounded by, so he simply continued vigorously shaking her hand.

“What?"

Although air and spacecraft are known to be typically quite cramped, the Tour de Force was surprisingly well-sized. Its ring module was, “where the magic happened," as Rodney had explained earlier. The floor was painted black in order to bring absolutism to the relative concept of “up" and “down" while in space. All equipment for repairs were stored in the cubic compartments mounted along the main hexagonal ring structure, as was the fuel, habitation, food and other vital components. The docking station was indeed quite cramped, however, and was only present to facilitate transition from shuttle to mothership.

The bridge was located directly left of the exit tube from the docking station. Having gone through the airlock and through the exit tube, Catherine entered the mothership. The walls were of a white complexion with complex metal wiring and pneumatic and hydraulic lines threading along them, though they looked somewhat homier than the walls on traditional space stations or craft. Such was the design of the ship; they were likely to be on the craft for at least a few years, so smooth colours and spaciousness throughout the corridors and rooms of the ship were of paramount importance for maintaining peak psychological health. There were two observation decks on the ship, though each of them was utilitarian in themselves. The first was the bridge, which, obviously, was the centre of navigation and the “brains" of the ship; the second was stocked with four cryogenic beds for long-term spaceflight. Both were fitted with plentiful nanoglass viewports- in space, windows that were too large simultaneously became too brittle, so instead of large continuous windowpanes being used, multiple quantised nanoglass viewports were placed adjacent to one another in order to provide a good view of the void while still retaining safety.

The bridge consisted of a room full of electronic displays and computer decks. It was perhaps the size of a large living room, with four g-resistant seats arranged before a deck of flight control instruments in a similar but larger manner than the one present on the Auroras. Harper drifted into the cryogenics bay to ascertain the condition of the Aphrodite system. Miles and Lareau performed checks of the ship's main systems- should there have been any problems or unexpected technological hindrances, it was paramount that they be reported and corrected before the expedition began. NASA could prepare a Hercules shuttle from the ground and repair the craft before the departure into the greater solar system and, eventually, far, far beyond it. Catherine, meanwhile, reviewed the Tour de Force's inventory catalogues and ascertained that the ship was properly stocked with all necessary materials for not only the mission but, if they were unable to return to Earth, the colony to prevent human extinction. After a few hours, having returned their respective thumbs-up over the radio, all four astronauts regrouped in the bridge and strapped themselves into their seats. Once again, Miles took the front pilot's seat whilst Catherine joined him in the adjacent co-pilot position.

“Alrighty," he said, priming the RCS system in front of him with the flips of a few switches. “Everybody ready to spin?"

The Tour de Force, much like all other modern spacecraft, was studded with reaction control system thrusters which, when fired, gave the massive spacecraft a surprising degree of agility and grace, though it was nowhere near as fleet-footed as the nimble Aurora or even the lumbering Hercules cargo transports. It also used electrically powered gyroscopes mounted along the ring structure to provide attitude control, as did other large spacecraft of similar size.

“Yep," Harper bluntly replied. Lareau gave a curt thumbs-up, and Catherine proffered an acknowledging nod. All still donned their spacesuits to assist in compensating for the acceleration.

“Okay," Miles returned. “Initiating spin sequence."

The RCS thrusters mounted along the ring module fired clockwise, spraying minute volumes of extremely high-velocity gas from their nozzles. As they did so, the spacecraft slowly began to rotate, and she could feel a familiar Earthly tug on her skeleton once more. Slowly, the relativity of “up" and “down" became replaced by the absolutism of gravity. Earth rotated around at an increasing pace and she could sense that her muscles were beginning to exert work once more.

“There we go," Miles said from the dashboard. “Fifty percent of spin achieved."

Catherine's digitigrade paws ceased floating and tapped the floor, gradually flattening out against the increasing pull they received. Her arms wobbled as the disorienting senses of microgravity were coming to an end, clashing with the old, familiar tugging that Earth's gravity provided. Soon enough she resorted to leaning in her chair, her inner ear clashing with the unnerving vision of Earth's frequent rotation again and again and again, around and around and around. She felt as though she were on a malfunctioning carnival ride.

“Wow," Lareau said happily, her dangling arms now resting at her side and pulled down by the pseudo-gravitational centrifugal forces. “This feels… amazing."

“Yeah," Miles returned, unstrapping himself and slowly standing from his chair. His muscles ached pleasantly from the deprived sensation, similar to the welcome brand of pleasant soreness one receives from strenuous exercise. “One g, just like home. How's everybody feeling?" He noticed Catherine slouching in her seat, the sheathed tail of her spacesuit hanging limply through the slot in the back of the chair. “You alright?"

“Yeah," she replied, “Yeah, I'm good." The collie was lying, however; her head was abuzz with discombobulating feelings of vertigo and sea sickness. She tapped the display on her suit's forearm and darkened her visor to one hundred percent opacity. “Maybe I just need to block the view for a while."

“You're going to have to look out the window at some point," Lareau countered. “May as well get used to it, hmm?"

Begrudgingly, she had to admit that the woman was right. What good was it to hide from the view? She had to face it at some point. She would have to adapt, just like everyone else. She fingered the forearm display once more and corrected her censorship of the view, allowing her brain to adjust to the swirling rotation of the stars and the spinning blue marble of Earth. It felt good.

“Catherine," Weir spoke in his gentle voice, his thinning hair and warm face visible through the electronic screen. “I wish you well. Be safe, and always remember everything you have here at home."

She smiled with that characteristic toothy grin only a dog could emulate. “I will, professor. Thank you." All four astronauts were standing near the electronic screen, one square metre in area, in the secondary observation deck opposite the bridge on the ring module. Standing. She still hadn't become fully accustomed to that idea whilst travelling in a spacecraft. Gravity still seemed like an entirely alien concept after they had departed Earth.

The sagely professor smiled. “I return that regard to everyone aboard. Your trajectory looks very good. We've calculated seven months to Jupiter, after which you will perform a gravitational slingshot manoeuvre and be on your way to Neptune. You will arrive at Neptune in two years, seven months. We will await your return."

“Look after my wife and daughter, would you, professor?" Lareau asked. Her eyes betrayed a sense of sadness at their mention.

“Absolutely, Elizabeth. I'll see that they're well taken care of. Should you wish to record any further messages, I can send them to your family."

“I appreciate that, sir, thank you." Her smile returned. Through the multitude of window ports, the sunlight rotated around, briefly bathing the room in white light before leaving only to return mere seconds later. The kaleidoscopic effect was still somewhat disorientating when one dwelled on it for an extended period, though it was becoming easier to adjust to as time wore on.

“I'm confident that you will return in due time," the professor continued. “When you get back, times will have changed; for the better, I hope. We'll take you in with open arms, either way. Good hunting, Tour de Force."

They sat in the bridge, Phillip fitted into the wall on their left, his consciousness now in the heart of the ship. The crew donned their spacesuits.

“Ready," the robot said via the intercom.

“Ready," said Lareau.

“Ready," Harper said.

Catherine nodded. “Ready," she replied in her thick Russian accent.

“Let's go," Miles said. “Initiating in three, two, one…"

Via a gloved hand he nosed the throttle forwards and all twelve engines of the ring module fired. Brilliant cerulean plasma was electromagnetically ejected from the nozzles at a blistering velocity. They were slammed into their seats as expected, though the sudden jolt of acceleration was no less overpowering. The collie could see stars in her eyes effervesce in her vision- other than the real stars hanging in the empty void- as her organs experienced the familiar and dreaded sensations of extreme compression by the tremendous acceleration.

After the onslaught of acceleration had faded, the engines settled to a low burn and steadily emitted streams of weak ions through their nozzles. In space, the platitude, “Slow and steady wins the race," was indeed applicable even in this alien environment. The fusion engines while on low burn emitted laughably weak volumes of thrust, though the high efficiency created by such weak emissions allowed them to continuously produce said thrust. Consequently, the ship could continuously accelerate throughout space while using only minimal fuel. Indeed, the continuous acceleration would allow them to catch up to and exceed the velocities of prior “loud and fast" rocketry in due time. Voyager 2 required twelve years to arrive at Neptune; the Tour de Force would cover the same distance in two and a half.

As the engines fired away, the looming image of Earth grew smaller within their frame of view. They were leaving the familiar orb of Earth to find a new home while humanity held its collective breath. They sped off into the cold, black void of outer space.

The expedition was underway.

The inner ear wasn't completely fooled by the artificial “gravity" found aboard the Tour de Force due to a little thing known as the Coriolis Effect. The effect traced its origins to a manifestation of the inertia found in a massive body, similar to the centrifugal force emulating gravity aboard the spacecraft. The fluid in the vestibular system developed small vortices within the inner ear as it rotated with the ship, creating a disorienting sense of nausea and inhibiting one from properly balancing themselves. Having been suffering from these ailments for hours, Catherine found that prolonged staring at the kaleidoscopic rotations of the stars swirling in the viewports was a suitable method to adjust for the discomfort. It was like the ocean: The best way to adjust to sea sickness was to endure it and become accustomed to the rocky sways of the boat upon the wavy surface.

Catherine was sitting in the secondary observation deck dressed in a white hospital gown. Her thick winter coat made her appear slightly corpulent, though in actuality she was quite the opposite. The deck below her consisted of an open room with the same whitish metal walls and machined appearance as the rest of the spacecraft, though the floor was particularly open in this room. Along the plastic tiled floor lay rounded cubes, what had the appearance of white, smooth coffins, and she ultimately supposed that they were. They were cryogenic beds, designed with the purpose of preserving life for long-term spaceflight, and four of them were present. Though presently they stood raised from the floor, once activated they would hydraulically recede into the ship's hull to receive additional insulation from the harsh radiation present outside of Earth's protective magnetosphere.

Lareau and Harper had already messaged their families via the transmitter- well, to be fair, Harper contacted his ex-wife- and were preparing their respective cryo-beds. The collie was gazing at Earth's big blue marble slowly rotate in the background. Only a few hours after the acceleration, they were already a fifth of the distance to the Moon. Her sensitive ears detected the metallic clanks of footsteps rising up the ladder adjacent to her and she turned to face the sound. Miles, too, was dressed in a hospital gown. He had a grey plastic box and clear vacuum pouch of water clutched in his hand.

“Hey," he said, taking up a seat adjacent to her. “How are you?"

“I don't know," she sighed and looked out the window. “I don't want to leave everything behind, even if it's for something as 'noble' as we're doing. It just seems so unnatural."

“Unnatural?"

“Leaving our home behind to find a new one; it's unnatural. Earth is all we have. We shouldn't just forget about it."

“I know what you mean," he replied. “But I wouldn't call it unnatural. Everything's a part of nature, us included."

“What do you mean?"

“Think about it. What differentiates people and animals?"

She shrugged. “What?"

“Intelligence. The ability to reason, to fight your subconscious and do what you think is best, despite what your unconscious instincts are telling you to do."

She sighed. “Does that make me an animal?"

He cocked his head curiously.

“I mean," she continued, “I can't always supress my instincts. Sometimes, when someone throws something, a little part of me… does want to go fetch it and take it in my jaws and bring it back. I can't escape that urge."

“No, you can't. But you can still choose to either go after the thing or not, right?"

She nodded.

“Well, there you go. We can't choose what we enjoy doing, that's just a part of life. I can't choose that I like engineering; you can't choose that you like to play fetch; those are instinctual. But you can choose to indulge those instincts or not. You can choose to be more than just your instincts. Almost all higher order creatures have that ability; a worm, you, and me. The only thing that differentiates any of those is intelligence. I mean, look at you: You're probably the queen of unnaturalism, a talking, thinking, reasoning canine, but you're just as personable as any of us. A lot of people think humans are above nature; we're not. We're just as much a part of nature as everything else. Beavers venture out of the den to find new homes and create dams to build their 'colonies'; we built the Tour de Force to do that same thing, to find salvation, to survive. Nothing unnatural in that."

The collie gazed out the window in silence. Earth's distant image still spun about, and it looked to be about the same size as before, but she knew that, since she last looked, the ship was likely a few hundred more kilometres distant.

“Anyway," Miles said, reaching into his plastic box, “Speaking of unnatural things, I have some medicine you'll need to take before you go down for the big freeze."

She extended a furry paw and he dropped four green horse pills onto her paw pad; the damned things had to be as long as her little finger. “Derr'mo," she exclaimed in Russian. Shit.

“Oh, come on, they're not that big."

“You understood that?"

“Maybe," he chuckled. “I'm not always as stupid as I look, you know."

She couldn't stifle the toothy canine grin that overtook her; she was unfamiliar with this feeling, but she had no desire to supress it. She accepted the vacuum pouch of water from him and begrudgingly managed to swallow the foul nutrient capsules.

Meanwhile, Lareau crawled into her open casket. Her back lay on a plastic-like blanket of electrically-activated constrictive polymers, and a dark green liquid pooled up to her neck. It was a viscous colloid possessing roughly the same viscosity of buttermilk, and when frozen in the cryogenic refrigeration system, it solidified into a thick solid capable of absorbing ionising radiation. She had already set the wakeup date for their arrival and primed the cryogenic system, and an IV was already present in her arm. Once she rested her head on the headrest, the computer activated and slowly retracted the thick outer casing of the “coffin" over her, sleep-inducing compounds being injected into her via the IV. She reached unconsciousness the moment the casket finally sealed shut around her. It soon sunk beneath the floor to begin its two year and seven month long refrigeration cycle.

Harper shuddered as he spectated the ordeal from his own bed. His claustrophobia contributed to his unwillingness to initiate the process; he simply lay there on his side in the sarcophagus, his hospital gown drenched with the dark green colloid, avoiding making contact with the headrest lest the sealing process begin. Upon deliberation, however, he decided that it would just be best to get it over with. With that, he finally laid his head down and closed his eyes, unwilling to view the sarcophagus close over him and trap him for two and a half years. The computer initiated the procedure and applied the soporific compounds via his intravenous injection, the outer casing beginning to mechanically slide over him.

He was unconscious before it even closed.

Catherine reviewed the major systems of the vessel one last time before she would go into cryo-sleep. She had performed a loop of the ring module and, having just passed through the cryogenic bay to ascertain the condition of the Aphrodite system, she neared the communications centre of the observation deck. She was going to check on the transmitter system to ensure that their ability to send and receive radio messages remained operational. “Call me neurotic…"

“You're neurotic," Phillip said through the intercom.

“And you're an eavesdropper," she retorted. “Knock it off."

“Roger." His reply was somewhat deflated. Damn right, she thought.

She heard Miles' voice as she neared the communications room, so she curiously poked her elongated head around the corner. He was speaking into the computer screen, his own reflected image the only thing gazing back at him.

“Hi, Mom," he spoke, “Hi, Dad. I just wanted to fill you in on what's going on up here. Earth looks beautiful from all the way out here. We broke orbit a few hours ago and are on our way to Neptune. After I get done with this message, I'll be taking a little dip in the cryo-bed; it'll take us two years and seven months to get there, and, you know me, I've got to get my beauty sleep." He laughed.

“So, anyway," he continued, “When you get this message, I'll probably be a little past the Moon. I want you to know that I love you, and that you'll be in my thoughts while I'm out there. I hope Kim is doing well. The first thing I'll do after I wake up is talk to you again, alright? Well, I guess I will see you guys in two and a half years. I love you. Bye-bye." With a sad sigh, he depressed his thumb on a red button above the screen and the display went black.

Catherine allowed her paws to make a series of metallic _pink_s across the floor as she walked towards him. He turned to face the sound. “I thought you'd be asleep by now," she said.

Miles shrugged. “I have parents and a sister back home. I figured I'd let them know what's going on. Surprised to see you still up."

“Just doing final checks on the ship."

“You're neurotic, you know that?" he chuckled. “Phillip'll take care of everything. He doesn't need to sleep." Miles rose out of his seat and stretched. She could see his fine, toned but not excessive musculature tense along his arms and legs, and for a moment her tail began to wag unconsciously. Why? she wondered, reticently forcing the damned appendage to cease its alien motions. What was this feeling?

“Maybe it's just the animal in me," she replied. He gave her a knowing smile.

“Well, do what you please, Catherine, but I need to catch up on some well-needed beauty sleep." He stepped down the white ladder and walked towards the cryo-bay. “Night."

“Night," she said quietly. A few moments later she heard the casket slide over him and seal shut, mechanically retracting into the floor and locking in place with a small click. The console lay open in front of her; if she sent a message, Weir would receive it and deliver to whomever it was addressed. But to whom should she have sent a message?

The collie was in the unique position of lacking an oriented family structure. The closest person thing to a family member she had was the poodle Augment she had met during her childhood, Samantha, who was a servant on the Lunar colony of Seuss, but would she even remember who Catherine was?

The comm station remained open, and she ignored it. She had no one to contact.

***

Zhao and Mei Lee were both approaching seventy years of age, though they retained a young appearance via the regular exercise and good diet they practiced. They had emigrated from China nearly four decades prior to escape the growing tyrannical government movement in the country and embrace the promise of American opportunity. What they received was near ubiquitous suspicion from their fellow citizens; most Asians, in particular, received similar treatment by American biases. They were branded as terrorists, thieves, rapists, ad infinitum. As the People's Republic of China grew more terroristic and threatening to the American ideals of free market capitalism and equal opportunity, so did the biases placed against the Chinese people. In particular, the parents felt most empathetic for their son and daughter, who endured the treatment from the moment of birth.

The couple resided on a vineyard in northern Oregon, and they owned a local but successful brand of wines simply known as Lee's. The brand was popular in the region's bars and known for its locally-grown, high quality taste which appealed to many a drinking man and woman in the state. They lived in a large country home surrounded by the vineyard, a dirt road extending from the porch the only route back to the hustle and bustle of Portland. Mei was sitting on the porch in jeans and a blue Lee's t-shirt. She was rather sweaty after picking grapes from the vineyard and had retired to the rocking chair outside with a glass of iced green tea. She saw a plume of dust coming from above the grapevines; something was coming down the winding dirt road.

Before long Miles' red electric beetle slowly arrived at the front yard, followed by a white van. Through the sunlight reflecting off the windshield she couldn't see Miles inside. Why would he come now? Seattle was hours away from here, and he hadn't called. A middle-aged man stepped out of the driver's seat carrying a satchel. He was dressed in scholarly attire, with a white shirt and tie and khaki business pants.

“Hello," he said in a gentle voice. “My name is Gene- Gene Weir. You must be Mrs. Lee?"

“Yes," she replied with a hint of a Chinese accent tinting her voice. “Why are you in my son's car?"

“He wanted me to deliver it here, should you need to use it. He also reminded me that Seattle parking isn't cheap. Your son is fine. He sent you a message, actually, and requested that I deliver it personally." He reached into his satchel and retrieved a grey computer drive. Mei walked down from the porch and retrieved it from him.

“Thank you," she said.

“Absolutely. Should you wish to record any messages, I can see that they are transmitted to him."

“Thank you, professor." Her husband, Zhao, walked out of the house and was given the same debriefing by Weir.

“Where is he now?" he asked.

“Right now," the professor said, “They are moving past the Moon. The next time you hear from Miles will be in March of 2107, when he'll be approaching Neptune."

“When will he come back?"

The professor sighed and looked up at the blue sky. The Moon was barely visible against the horizon, though the one hundred and twenty metre wide Tour de Force was nowhere to be found. Nor was the answer to Mr. Lee's inquiry.

***

#

Neptune hung lazily in space in an apathetic elliptical orbit around the very distant Sun. The planet exhibited swirling bands of blue and black and winds which reached well over the speed of sound on Earth. Officially, the sixteen kilometre sphere found by amateur astronomers to be orbiting Neptune was publicly identified as the planet's fifteenth moon, going by the name of Venilia, which was disclosed in 2073. Unofficially, however, and unbeknownst to the public media, "Venilia" was a far more exotic object than a simple moon.

#

Slowly drifting across the empty void above Neptune was a phenomenon known as the Great Dark Spot, and it continued to elude scientists as to its origins. It disappeared in 1994, after only a few years of observation, though in 2029 the planetary storm reappeared in the same region of the planet, only to irregularly disappear and reappear over the next series of years. High above Neptune, parallel to its faint icy ring structure, the tiny white speck of the Tour de Force was rotating and slowly skirting through the empty void above the planet. The ship was constantly swathed in alternating regions of light and dark in keeping with its steady rotation relative to the distant Sun.

Something felt cold. She could feel wet ice around her fur, thought she still felt as though she was incapacitated. A piercing light slowly hit her eyes from behind her eyelids and an odd mechanical sound resonated above her. Suddenly she was falling and hurtling towards her death, and in that instant, every muscle in her body seized and her eyes snapped open. Miles was standing above her with an empathic smile on his face and an empty vacuum pouch in his hand. Her stomach gurgled horrendously. Catherine looked down at the space between her legs and belched loudly, her stomach clenching and protesting its contents. She snatched the vacuum pouch from Miles and shoved her muzzle inside, violently vomiting a white paste. This continued for a moment until she felt her stomach regain its composure, at which point she removed her snout from the bag. Miles offered her a warm steamed towel and she cleaned her mouth of the offensive bile.

“Oh, god," she said with a shaky voice. “What the hell was that?"

“Those pills we took?" Miles said. “They're designed to inflate in your stomach and slowly release nutrients over an extended period. Regurgitation is… an unfortunate consequence." He walked over the airlock and pulled a chute, throwing the vomit-filled vacuum pouch down the tube. He placed the towel in a circular washing machine built into the wall and shut the lid.

“What are you doing with those?"

“Well, we can't afford to waste the water or the nutrients. That bag's contents will be recycled."

She cringed. “That's disturbing."

“So is spaceflight in general," he replied honestly.

She showered- an extremely cramped process in space- and dried herself off with a towel. As she gazed out at the deep blue of the planet through the viewports, she entered her profile within the computer of the communications room. One message icon was blinking and she opened it.

“Hi, Catherine," Weir spoke into the camera. “I hope you're doing well. I must say, LIGO seems a little boring without you here. Primarily, though, I just wanted to thank you for doing this. You have no idea how important this mission is, and for you to volunteer is very noble of you. I don't really have a lot to say, I suppose, but above all I just wanted to let you know how much I appreciate your sacrifice. You are an outstanding example of your species."

She couldn't help but smile. Short and sweet- that was how Weir always worked.

As Catherine exited the cryo-bay she came across Lareau's cabin. It was a simple dwelling, not much larger than an average restroom back on Earth, with a series of drawers for clothing built into the wall adjacent to a bunk bed. The walls were somewhat homier, with a pastel white and grey complexion coloured into a series of hexagons. It wasn't much, but relative to most space vehicles, it was rather luxurious in comparison. There was a single half-square metre viewport looking outside to the cold blackness of space, though Lareau lay in the bottom bed with a tablet in her hands. The collie sat next to her.

“Hi, Liz," she said, “How are you?"

“Nervous as hell," the woman replied, sitting up from her rested position.

“What about?"

“This." She showed her the tablet. The display had three images of what appeared to be a tunnel of light surrounded by a rapidly moving stream. “These are images from the wormhole retrieved by some of the probes we flew in. As they went through, they sent images of the alien solar system."

“What happened to them?"

“Only three remained. The rest probably didn't survive the journey, like turtle hatchlings going to the ocean."

She sighed lowly. “Don't you think that's a little morbid?"

“I don't know. I mean, this is a portal cutting across spacetime; who knows if it's even safe to traverse?"

The intercom buzzed. “Hey, everyone?" Harper's voice announced. “We'll be approaching the wormhole in four hours. Secure all perishable materials and suit up."

Catherine looked towards Elizabeth empathetically. “I guess we'll find out."

They met in the bridge and strapped themselves in. From the co-pilot seat Catherine could see a looming, flickering sphere of purple glowing against the background of space. It was sixteen kilometres in diameter, though from the distance it looked only a few centimetres across.

“Oh, wow," she said, mesmerised by the twinkling colours on the surface. It had the appearance of a raindrop, though its surface was mottled with smears of stars and nebulae on the other side, and it burned with a bright violet glow.

“How should I approach it?" Miles asked concernedly.

“Just glide into it, nice and easy," Catherine replied with a hint of trepidation. “It's a three dimensional hole. No matter where we enter, we'll end up on the other side."

“How the hell does that happen?" Harper asked.

“It's a hole leading into the bulk. If our universe was a sheet of paper; the bulk is that same sheet of paper crumpled into a ball. The wormhole passes through the bulk, shortening the distance between it and the exit to the alien galaxy."

The sphere grew larger in the viewscreen.

“I'm cutting the gravity," Miles said. “I don't want to put any more stress on the frame than we have to."

“Roger," she replied, reaching a gloved hand over to the console and priming the RCS controls. “Cancelling spin."

The RCS jets fired and the ship slowly ceased its rotation, eventually coming to a halt moments later. She had grown so accustomed to the stars' spinning that, when their rotation ceased, her vestibular system protested and she felt her head spin. The lack of gravity made her stomach lurch.

The wormhole only grew closer.

“Three minutes out," Lareau said, watching the controls on the wall to her right. The wormhole was square in the centre of their vision, the distorted sphere rippling and twinkling with the light of distant stars. The outer surface was like a perfect membrane, casting perfect images of alien stars and nebulae. As they approached, the light of the stars behind the wormhole was swept up and carried along the outer rim of the wormhole. The stars appeared to accelerate and rapidly shoot across the sphere as the ship approached. It was as if they were flying into a massive shaving mirror.

The light coming from the sphere began to blueshift as they approached, and the normally somewhat dark cockpit was alight with the violet glare. “Thirty seconds," Miles said. He wanted to wipe the sweat from his forehead, but his helmet was locked. The surface began to balloon in front of them and warp from a sphere into a very long field of black intermixed with trails of purple gasses and white and blue stars. The outer universe wrapped itself around the outside of the field of light and the stars under them swept by faster and faster and faster. A loud creak of metal echoed through the ship as the wormhole's gravity overtook them, and Elizabeth looked nervously over her shoulder.

“Alright, everyone," Miles said nervously. “Take one last good look of our solar system. We're going in."

“Nice and slow," Catherine said.

“Nice and slow," he repeated slowly. He gently nosed the centre-stick down and eased off the throttle, letting the weak gravity of the wormhole take them in. The stars swept by impossibly fast as they approached, and the light grew brighter and brighter still. The universe stretched out in front of them, the light overtaking them, the light growing impossibly bright until an inferno singed their eyes, until-

They popped through the liquid-like membrane with a crash of gravity and the ship jumped forwards, smashing them into their seats. The alarm on the dashboard beeped violently and the Tour de Force shook mercilessly under the tides of gravity and dilaton fields. Outside, the stars streaked past with an impossible speed on what appeared to be a blackened tunnel of distorted light rays. On the surface of the tunnel, ripples of whitish-blue light sped past like waves in the middle of a hurricane. It looked as though they were flying inside of the eye of a tremendous, pitch black hurricane, streaks of violet and yellow and cyan light screaming past them as they did so. Catherine could see the end of the tunnel very far away from the viewscreen, though even as the stars streaked past the exit to the wormhole appeared no closer.

The ship shook and thrashed relentlessly, the metal creaking and straining as it did so. The ship lurched and a crash echoed through the frame, knocking everyone to the left; had their kinetic straps not been in place they would have collided with the wall and likely suffered catastrophic injury.

“Jesus Christ!" Miles shouted. “What the hell is going on?"

“Quantum fluctuations!" the collie replied. “We just have to tough it out!"

Another crash echoed through the ship and the shaking only grew worse. The computer continued its incessant beeping. As the tunnel of liquid light around them began to contract suddenly, the intensity only grew. The stars and smears of light receded to a spherical orb ahead of them, distorting in the opposite direction as moments before. The convex exit to the other wormhole mouth suddenly approached quickly, much too quickly, overtaking and bathing the ship in the familiar violet light of before. They neared the outer edge and the stars stretched out into fields of light once more, but in the opposite direction relative to the prior mouth of the wormhole.

As they skirted past the edge the stars suddenly morphed out of their mottled streaks and snapped back into distant points of light and splashes of vibrant colour. They lurched forwards in their seats and the restraints held them tightly against further deceleration. The sensors finally ceased their violent beeps as they could finally detect what was around them; the mysterious dilaton fields, whose existence is inherently in the bulk, were undetectable by the sensors, though the effects of the fields and their quantum fluctuations were quite easily detectable.

And in that instant it was over. It was the most amazing thing Catherine had ever seen. She looked through the tiny viewport on the wall behind her and saw the gargantuan sphere of the wormhole’s mouth behind the ship. Its kaleidoscopic optical distortions and ripples of light faded slowly as the ship sped away from it.

Miles exhaled loudly and sighed with relief. “We made it.”