7- Orbit
Our first stop was to a system called Adille. The trip to Adille had been…complicated, to say the least. Working on a ship—even a corvette the size of the Virgil—that was the name of Ulysses’ ship—was no small task.
After we got off the ground—a painstaking process taking hours of slow repulsor-lifting away from the surface before it was a safe altitude to activate the engines—it took another day in orbit before we were allowed to dock the Hyperspace Ferry. I was assigned to work with Astor Munn, the deck officer, the giant of a man I had seen at our first meeting. He was a man of few words and—seemingly—fewer thoughts. His every focus was on diligent custodianship of the Virgil’s meager supply, and ample inventory. During the painfully slow repulsor-lift process, we were locked into our seats and Astor and I sat across from each other.
“So, how did you come to meet Ulysses?” I shouted over the roar of the Repulsors.
Astor looked lazily at me, and answered in his normal speaking voice, which I couldn’t hear.
“What?!” I shouted.
He said the same thing, barely audible.
“I can’t hear you!”
Astor shrugged and looked away.
Once the engines engaged, I understood why we were strapped in—Astor at least had his back to the engines, so he was pressed against the wall—I felt like I was hanging from the straps. We were soaring into orbit now, I presumed, the farm I always knew was far away. But I couldn’t see it, thanks to these blasted four walls and this caveman who was my overseer. I ground my teeth and balled my fists, but I resolved to get a view of space as soon as I could slip away.
I didn’t have to wait long for an opportunity. Once we got in to orbit we had an inexplicable delay. Astor had me sweeping the warehouse floor but, as I had already done that a few hours earlier, it was quick work.
“Mr. Munn, can I please go see outside?”
Astor sighed and shrugged, “Go on.”
I climbed up the ladder out of the Warehouse and rushed down the main causeway that ran along the spine of the ship. I was still finding my way around, so I took a turn and entered into a room with a lot of computers, where Ulysses was speaking with Tomaz and another person I didn’t recognize. They looked up at my sudden arrival.
“Ah, Tylus!” Ulysses said. “Come join us, this is Tomaz Marino, whom you have already met, and this is Rickard Bergen our Quatermaster. Rickard, this is Tylus, our latest Deck-hand.”
“Deck hand, eh? That means they’ve got you working with Astor! Good solid work, that. Welcome aboard!” he said cheerfully. Tomaz nodded a terse “Hello.”
“Yes,” I replied, “I am very grateful to have the work, thank you for having me aboard.”
“Oh, nothing at all!” Ulysses said, clapping me painfully on the shoulder. “What can I do for you Tylus?”
“I was just trying to find a place I could see outside. Still learning my way around the ship.”
“Oh, it’ll come to you in no time. Gentlemen, I’ll catch up with you later, let me show our latest crewmate around.” They nodded and Ulysses led the way back up to the causeway. “That there was the Nav/Com room, up here is the weapons command center, but what you’re looking for is all the way up front, our modest observation deck.”
I looked into each room as we passed by, each had one or two people busying themselves at some station, or engaged in a casual conversation. I followed Ulysses to the observation deck and stepped into it—it felt like a massive fishbowl. I knew intuitively all the screens were electronic, but they felt so clear, so real—it was the next best thing to being in the vacuum of space.
I could see the massive dome of Koslov beneath us—snow-capped continents and icy seas I’ve never seen, illuminated by the distant star behind us. I could see layers in the atmosphere, the faint relief of towering storm clouds and in the distance flashing points of light of a thunderstorm. It was beautiful. It was everything I hoped it would be—but it was still home. My attention was grabbed by a fast-moving point of light that ascended out of the atmosphere and sped away into a different orbit perpendicular to ours. There were several bright points of light zipping around in the distance of orbit. But there was one point of light that was fixed, and I could just barely discern its massive shape. I pointed to it—“What’s that?”
“That, my friend, is our ticket away from this snowball. That is our hyperspace ferry.”
“What is a hyperspace ferry?”
“Well you know hyperspace, right? It requires a hyperdrive, and those are too big and too powerful to fit on a ship like the Virgil. So they build these hyperspace ferries so small ships like ours can dock on them and they can carry us through. That’s what we are doing now, waiting for clearance. Tomaz already arranged our spot but they are being very bureaucratic right now, so that’s why we’re in a holding pattern.”
“So what is hyperspace? Why do they call it that?”
“Oh boy you sure you aren’t working on a degree in quantum engineering or something?” Ulysses laughed, as he always did, at his own joke. “Ok so here’s how someone explained it to me. We have four dimensions, right? Length, width, breadth, but also time. It takes energy to move through the first three, but if you stop and do nothing you are pushed inexorably forward through time. Make sense?”
“Yeah…”
“So hyperspace is an inversion of normal space—where if you stop and do nothing you are pushed inexorably forward through space.”
“Does that mean if we expend energy we can travel through time?”
“Whoaaa buddy, hold your horses. If you can figure out how to apply a force to time, be my guest to time travel. But for now all this humble spacer can do is travel through space at no loss of time.”
“So how do we get into hyperspace?”
“Now you have transcended my understanding. Someone tried to explain it to me once—probably the same person who explained how hyperspace works—but they weren’t able to make it simple. That question requires the degree in Quantum wizardry.”
“So what does hyperspace feel like?”
“I’m going to let you figure that one out by yourself—won’t be long before we get hitched to our ride and you get your interstellar devirginization. I’m going to let you stew on that one. How long did Astor let you stray?”
“He didn’t say.”
“That means five minutes. Take it in, but then you better get back. I’ve got work to do so I’ll leave you to it. Don’t be late, son.”
“Yes, sir!”
Ulysses climbed back into the Causeway and left me to absorb the majesty of space.
(originally published 9/5/22)