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This the fourth short story in the "Beam" series by award winning author and inventor, Trevor F. Smith.
The adventure picks up where "Sphere" left off, as Elizabeth, Lester, and Hitchcock have reached the orbit of the mysterious object left by the beam:
Hitchcock was awake. Starlight filtered through the forest canopy and dappled the walls of the cabin he shared with Lester. A trio of Clytemnestra’s beetle bots was resting in Lester's sleep-crumpled dreads, occasionally flicking their wings in response to dreams. Sometimes he forgot that he was in microgravity on a self-aware ship orbiting far from Earth. This quiet morning, snuggled in with his sleeping lover and their intelligent ship, he knew that he was home.
When Hitchcock's watch read 0500, he slowly slid his arm from behind Lester's head and slipped out of the sleeping bag that was their floating bed. As he pushed out of the cabin door he snagged his neatly packed gym bag, put together the night before in hopes of a quiet morning.
From the cabin's porch, Hitchcock listened and looked out over the forest while he performed the stretching routine that he had learned from his ROTC squad leader and then modified for microgravity. He warmed up his muscles and stretched his tendons to the sounds of insects enjoying easy flights, oblivious to their distance from Earth's biome. He looked over the curving canopies that grew wild without gravity’s pull.
Sensing nothing out of the ordinary, Hitchcock pushed to the outer wall of the forest module. He clipped himself into a waist belt with cables that connected to two loops poking out of a track on the floor. Once the belt was secure, the loops moved away from each other until the tension in the cables pulled Hitchcock's feet securely to the floor. He shifted forward and back to test that the tension was steady, then began his morning run around the forest.
A quarter of the way around the dome, he ran past the clearing where Clytemnestra's beetles covered the trunk of a dogwood tree. He noted that the buds that appeared a few days ago were almost ready to bloom. The beetles noticed his passing and buzzed their wings to play a short burst of Reveille. He smiled and waved.
As he approached the halfway mark most distant from his and Lester's cabin, he heard voices coming from above the trees where Elizabeth Stinton spent most of her time on the ship. She was exchanging heated words with the chief operating office of the company she operated back on Earth, no doubt because of the legal takeover attempt of her company by Monk Industries. Not wanting to intrude, he picked up his pace and focused on his breathing until he was out of earshot.
At three-quarters around the forest he could look through a break in the canopy and out through the transparent dome to see the object whose mystery had brought them here. Little more than a black spot against the stars, its matte surface appeared unchanged since 78 hours ago when their alien guide, Sphere, had disappeared inside. Despite Sphere's assurances beforehand, Hitchcock was uneasy that they had seen no movement.
Download "Link" to continue the adventure!
The adventure picks up where "Sphere" left off, as Elizabeth, Lester, and Hitchcock have reached the orbit of the mysterious object left by the beam:
Hitchcock was awake. Starlight filtered through the forest canopy and dappled the walls of the cabin he shared with Lester. A trio of Clytemnestra’s beetle bots was resting in Lester's sleep-crumpled dreads, occasionally flicking their wings in response to dreams. Sometimes he forgot that he was in microgravity on a self-aware ship orbiting far from Earth. This quiet morning, snuggled in with his sleeping lover and their intelligent ship, he knew that he was home.
When Hitchcock's watch read 0500, he slowly slid his arm from behind Lester's head and slipped out of the sleeping bag that was their floating bed. As he pushed out of the cabin door he snagged his neatly packed gym bag, put together the night before in hopes of a quiet morning.
From the cabin's porch, Hitchcock listened and looked out over the forest while he performed the stretching routine that he had learned from his ROTC squad leader and then modified for microgravity. He warmed up his muscles and stretched his tendons to the sounds of insects enjoying easy flights, oblivious to their distance from Earth's biome. He looked over the curving canopies that grew wild without gravity’s pull.
Sensing nothing out of the ordinary, Hitchcock pushed to the outer wall of the forest module. He clipped himself into a waist belt with cables that connected to two loops poking out of a track on the floor. Once the belt was secure, the loops moved away from each other until the tension in the cables pulled Hitchcock's feet securely to the floor. He shifted forward and back to test that the tension was steady, then began his morning run around the forest.
A quarter of the way around the dome, he ran past the clearing where Clytemnestra's beetles covered the trunk of a dogwood tree. He noted that the buds that appeared a few days ago were almost ready to bloom. The beetles noticed his passing and buzzed their wings to play a short burst of Reveille. He smiled and waved.
As he approached the halfway mark most distant from his and Lester's cabin, he heard voices coming from above the trees where Elizabeth Stinton spent most of her time on the ship. She was exchanging heated words with the chief operating office of the company she operated back on Earth, no doubt because of the legal takeover attempt of her company by Monk Industries. Not wanting to intrude, he picked up his pace and focused on his breathing until he was out of earshot.
At three-quarters around the forest he could look through a break in the canopy and out through the transparent dome to see the object whose mystery had brought them here. Little more than a black spot against the stars, its matte surface appeared unchanged since 78 hours ago when their alien guide, Sphere, had disappeared inside. Despite Sphere's assurances beforehand, Hitchcock was uneasy that they had seen no movement.
Download "Link" to continue the adventure!
25 pages, Kindle Edition
Published October 16, 2015
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