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Tinaya and Aristotle are wearing their Integrated Multipurpose Suits. He’s
been transporting himself, and sometimes his mother, to other celestial
objects in the solar system, which is a power that his own father did not
even have. Maqsud Al-Amin was a long-range teleporter. He could jump from
one star system to another, but very imprecisely, and he couldn’t jump to
different parts of the planet that he had landed on, or to neighboring
orbitals. Aristotle, it seems, is much more powerful than his dad was in a
lot of ways, but he still has his limitations. Some teleporters can, for
instance, make a jump to the other side of a locked door, but that’s
impossible for him. In fact, he has to be outside in order for it to work
properly. He once blew the ceiling and roof off of a building when he was
overcome with emotion, and uncontrollably transported himself and everyone
else in the room light years away. That’s his main issue. He has very little
control over it, and Lilac believes this to be a psychological problem. This
means that he can learn to move past it.
Aristotle’s dream of sending everyone on Verdemus back to Extremus is
loftier than it might sound. It’s certainly far enough away, but precision
is non-negotiable in this case. Since the ship is currently traveling at
maximum reframe speed, there is no close; only right on target. Even if they
were to be all wearing suits, it could prove fatal. Perhaps they end up in
the path of the ship, or halfway through a bulkhead. They can’t afford
to—pardon the pun—jump hastily into this endeavor. Aristotle believes that
he’s ready, but Tinaya isn’t so sure. He’s been spending a lot of time
making his jumps, and coming right back, and so far, he hasn’t experienced
any issues. He even went to a meteor in the next solar system over, and
managed to return unscathed. And that’s all well and good, but she needs to
see it for herself first. There are too many variables here, so unless
Aristotle can be a lot more specific about what he’s done in his past to
practice this power, he’s only going to work on her timeline. He still won’t
even tell them exactly how old he is, or what he was doing before he finally
found Niobe in the Goldilocks Corridor. That could be the key to solving
everything.
One other major problem with Trotting, as it’s called, is the time issue.
Teleportation is inherently time travel. In a vacuum, light moves at a
constant speed. Temporal manipulators regularly break this speed, whether
the result is that they end up backwards or forwards in time, or not. The
reason a light year is called that is because that is the distance a photon
of light will travel in the span of a year. So when one looks up at a star,
they are not seeing it as it is in the moment, but as it was in the past.
The light that is hitting their eyes first left its point of origin exactly
as long ago as the distance to that origin in light years. When a Trotter
pinpoints a destination in the stars, he can choose to tie himself to the
original photons, or to the new ones. If a star is, say, five light years
away, he can go five years backwards in time, or he can land there only
moments later from when he started. But this is not a simple intuitive
trick. Maqsud evidently took years to learn to master this skill. Sure, he
was a free spirit with no roots keeping him from leaving, so he wasn’t
deliberately trying to figure out how to do anything perfectly, but it still
isn’t a simple matter. Aristotle is a long way off from achieving this as
well, and even longer from proving it to Tinaya.
Today, they’re leaving their friends behind, and going on a test run.
According to data that they managed to pull from a galactic mapping program
called Project Topdown, there is a star within Aristotle’s range that hosts
a planet with a possible breathable atmosphere. Even if the readings aren’t
accurate, it’s certainly a terrestrial world. For now, Aristotle either has
to see where he’s going, or know where he’s going, based on other
information. In this case, he has both, because they specifically chose it
for its relative proximity to their current location. It’s not in the
direction of Extremus, but it’s not in the direction of the Goldilocks
Corridor either, and that’s important right now, because they have no
interest in running into any trouble. Again, this is just a test. Tinaya
wants to see what he’s made of, and if he fails, only their own lives are in
danger. Everyone else will be able to live on, even if they die of old age
of Verdemus.
“Are you ready?” he asks.
“I am.”
“Am I ready?” he pushes, realizing what she means by that.
Tinaya looks over at Lilac, who nods, confident in her son’s ability. She’s
already given her approval for this mission. He’s an adult now, but he still
relies on her. Tinaya thinks it over for a moment. “Okay, you have a go.”
“We have a go,” he corrects. For the most part, starting in a body of
water makes it easier to activate the power, but he’s been practicing
without this crutch, because if he can manage without, then he can
definitely manage with. He spreads his arms out before him to welcome the
light from his destination star, kept in focus by the heads-up display on
his helmet. “Yalla.”
They fly into the air, and then out of the air. They soar out of the
Verdemusian solar system, and past dozens of stars. Their visors turn opaque
as the doppler glow attempts to blind them. There’s no turning back now. He
saw where he wanted to go, but now he can’t see anything, so he has either
succeeded, or already failed. Either way, they’re going somewhere. A
couple minutes pass, which is highly concerning. The target star is only 78
light years away, and it shouldn’t take this long to get there. Then again,
they’ve not had too much time to calculate travel time for his other jumps.
They don’t have a lot of data and experience yet, and neither Aristotle nor
Lilac is a notable mathematician. Finally, the glow recedes, and they see
the star coming at them. There’s something wrong here, though. This far out
in the galaxy, it should be uninhabited. But they’re headed for what looks
like a ship. Shit, the Exin Empire must have spread farther than they
realized. They’re going to be landing in enemy territory, and there is
nothing they can do about it.
They crash through a giant glass window, fall through the cylindrical
habitat that they’ve found themselves in, and splash into what’s either a
lake or a pool. No chlorine, it’s probably a lake. A crowd forms around them
as robots begin to repair the damage from above. A few people hop into the
water, and help them out. They ask if the two of them are okay, but they’re
not surprised to see them, nor upset. That’s a good sign. Maybe not all
Exins are bad. Some of them look like they’re using communication devices,
probably to contact the authorities.
One of them steps forward. “Get them towels, and escort them to guest
quarters.” He looks upon Tinaya and Aristotle. “There will be showers there.
I’m sure that Team Keshida will want to speak with you soon, so do not waste
time.”
“Of course,” Tinaya answers before Aristotle can question what the man just
said to them. This is not a good place to be. Well, it’s fine, but it could
be dangerous. They don’t even know what year it is.
They follow their escorts to the train, which transports them down to the
far end of the cylinder. After their showers, they find new clothes waiting
for them on the bed, and a note on the smartmirror that their suits have
been taken in for service. When they open the door to leave, lights guide
them down the hallway where they find an airlock. A small pod flies them
thousands of kilometers away, to a different cylinder. When the hatch opens,
none other than Captain Kestral McBride, and Lieutenant Ishida Caldwell are
waiting for them. These are two of the most famous people in Extremusian
history. Everyone knows Team Matic, and they’ve learned about the violent
exploits of Anatol Klugman. They’re aware of the Preston family, and the
powers that be. But Team Keshida is directly responsible for the
successful launch of the Extremus mission in the first place. No two people
are more important to it. They’re in Gatewood Collective, which is thousands
of light years off course.
“Report,” Captain McBride says.
“Could you tell us the date first?”
“It’s August 24, 2269,” the Lieutenant answers.
“We’re Extremusians, from 78 years in the future,” Tinaya answers.
“Did you use the recall device to return? How come it’s just the two of
you?”
“I am Aristotle Al-Amin,” he replies before Tinaya can stop him this time.
“I see,” the Captain says. “There is probably a lot that you should not tell
us.”
“There is only one thing that maybe you can tell us?” Tinaya asks hopefully.
“We might be able to send you back to the ship,” Lieutenant Caldwell says,
assuming this to be the question they were going to ask.
“That’s a problem,” Tinaya begins. “We weren’t on the ship. We’ve...found
planets along the way. We do indeed want to return to Extremus one day, but
it’s complicated. There are those we left behind on our outpost. We would
have to retrieve them first, and would rather never see Extremus again if
it’s the only way to reunite them.”
Captain McBride nods. “I may be able to rig up a sort of homestone that
takes you back to the place you last left, rather than the place you were
when you first time traveled. It will take us some time to figure out how to
do that, though.”
“We would be eternally grateful,” Tinaya tells her. “In return, we would be
willing to brief you on matters of the mission for the last eight decades.”
“That would not be wise,” the Lieutenant contends. “Extremus has not even
launched yet from our temporal perspective.”
“Perhaps we can brief the archives, with a temporal firewall in place, which
will only unlock a file once it becomes the present day for you.”
“Hmm,” Captain McBride says, considering it. “We would have to invent that
too, but it would be acceptable.”
“It would be nice to be able to keep up on your progress,” the Lieutenant
agrees, “even if there is nothing we can do to help you while you’re out
there.”
The Captain nods. “In the meantime, you will report to the medical wing for
a physical, and an adaptive quarantine.”
“Adaptive quarantine, sir?” Aristotle asks.
“It starts with eleven hours,” Lieutenant Caldwell begins to explain. “At
that point, the medical staff will reassess. If the sensors detect an issue,
and you need longer, it will jump up to twenty-four hours total. Then
forty-two, then fifty-six, and then eighty-three. After that, we start
measuring it in days, starting with eleven again. Let’s hope it doesn’t get
that far.”
They end up staying in quarantine for eleven months.
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