-----Two days later, the near space of Star Command--------
Rarely did a sole terrestrial see so many star cruisers together in a mighty formation. The muscles of Star Command were strengthened up to their breaking points. The event that would go on this day would need immense security from all the possible sources the Alliance could provide.
The silent finding, the opaque space bean hovered in its marked position a bit further from Star Command Headquarters. The gleam of distant suns reflected faintly from it, giving an eerie atmosphere to it. It was breathing all the ancient universal mysteries. Its immense size awoke demure awe, as it sat there in the soundless vacuum.
Star cruiser forty-two was leading of course the security operation. In a good range, the ships were surrounding the eccentricity, ready for hard actions if anything peculiar would happen. The energy blast device the LGM's had designed, was detached to one ship, and aimed right at the other end of the target. There had not indicated to be any starting point in the far-away finding, since it looked just the same almost on every side.
Madame President's imposing representative ship floated also present, behind it a good flock of Alliance's Senator vessels, as well as some private civilian vehicles. Among these was a place for the Darkmatters and the rest of the Lightyears, too. The latter groups of persons kept comlink connections all the time up with Team Lightyear.
The ambiance was full of insecurity, agitation, but also effervescent curiosity. Nevertheless, what came to Buzz Lightyear, something was oppressing his mind. Yet this was not actually present, moreover it was something distant. Like a smell of a faraway storm that would sweep over the landscape. And this feeling that Zurg had as well pestering his subconscious, had spread also to the Darkmatters and rest of Buzz' comrades. Booster was so nervous in the rear part of 42 that he ate his fingernails through the gloves of his space ranger uniform. Mira doddered in her copilot chair, blabbering something antsy about her new pink living room curtains (that apparently had little bluebirds illustrated on them), as if this issue had had something to do with the current circumstances. And Buzz was in his distraction flapping the lid of his wrist communicator back and forth. Although XR had made notices about this already somewhat a gazillion times, the Captain was not aware of his irritating panicky routine.
"Blast! Why won't they start already?" he slapped his cheek and turned again to play with the comlink lid.
"It's up to Commander Nebula... ehe heh... he'll give the signal and then you lead the star cruisers closer the operation area. Eheh... by the way, I'm going to buy a new TV-table that matches well with the curtains. I have some bright-pink paint still in the garage; I could repair one myself, if there was one for example in some flea market..."
"Cut it out, Princess... Are you gonna decorate your home like some Barbie house? And now in the middle of the week's event?" XR shook his head.
"Uh-eh... sorry... I guess I'm just a bit... umm... nervous. Umm... and on second thought, pink is maybe hmm... not the right color after all."
During that time, Booster had already chewed his glove fingers broken. Now he was baffled turning over his hands, beeping to Buzz, "Umm... I think I need a new space suit... is there umm... a spare one in the cargo area?"
"Blast... you guys are impossible. Go to change, ranger Munchapper, you can't enter space with a broken uniform. It'll leak."
"And will ya Cap stop the flip-flap flip-flap flip-flap flip-flap? Gaah, I'm going nutso! AARRGGHH!" XR pretended that he had some kind of lunatic attack. He began rolling around the cockpit, and was finally arrested by Mira, who also promised to quit the rambling about her pinkish furnishing if the insane robot would quit his idiocies.
And in the middle of this bustle, Commander Nebula's snappy voice awakened them. His face flickered in the comlink's vid screen.
"Alright, troops! Be prepared to the activation! You'll lead now the star cruisers into the formation. The energy ray will be blasted in five minutes UGT! Over and out!"
"Yes, Sir!"
42 switched on its engines and gave a depart call to the rest of the ships. The LGM's were driving the one where the blaster was. From their spots, the vessels quickly flew in a circle-formation around the spooky obscure object. The count until zero was started.
"Fifteen... fourteen... thirteen..." a whiny LGM voice announced through a com channel that reached every single spacecraft.
"Thirteen! It's thirteen! Aaaghhh..." XR went nuts with superstition in 42.
"The pathetic lack-wits and puny worms of the Alliance shall regret this..." Zurg cursed under his breath in his ship. "I shall not conclude this with a glorious Jim-kraken-dandy."
"Ten... nine..."
"This will be a giant leap for the mankind!" a flock of Alliance Senators praised in their conveyances.
"Tadadaa tattaatta... two, one, zero, kaboom! Capital Planet turns into a black hole!" Warp's skeptical sarcasms filled his transport.
"Five..."
"The truth is out there..."
"One... Zero."
At the very instant a green dwarf pressed an oversized red button on his console. The energy blaster device, that mainly resembled a big spray can, began to live. As no sonic waves could be head in the cold vacuum, the whole dinosaurs-sized action was jarringly quiet.
Everyone gasped in unison as the thingamajig produced the refreshening shower for the inanimate dollop. A green pulse of monochromatic light reached it... and then complete stillness for a few seconds. At first the thing only shimmered its oddities, as if it was charging itself somehow. Then... swoosh! In a fraction of time all the carved, complex grooves on its surface turned to canalize the power it was given. The view was something superiorly awe-inspiring and beautiful. Every single scratch and figure on it shone bluish electronic light, as if an enormous amount of fireworks would have been shot in the sky at the same time. And if sound waves would have behaved like the electromagnetic ones, surely there would have been heard hollow rumble, as the globule tardily began opening up its inners.
Initially, there was a split, like someone had cut a plum into six separate parts vertically. The joint grooves turned to shine purple light instead of the blue that was still decorating the rest of the surface.
"Ahhgahaahaa, purple! Jim-kraken-dandy!" Zurg whooped in his ship for a picosecond, then turned back to sulk the ignorance the Galactic Alliance had divulged towards him.
Then after the violet rays of electromagnetic specter had fainted a little, the organic lump began to resemble some giant insect that was straightening its six, huge legs. Slowly the six parts separated from each other, and it became visible how they were connected to each other like some choker. But their shape was far away from pearls or jewels, mainly someone might have described them to be rotten bananas, since they were ebony and arched.
Every crawling, flying, creeping, and trotting life form in the audience held their breaths. Buzz' fingers sweated, as he kept a shaking hand above a button that would send a common defense station call to all the star cruisers. Anything could be expected now to happen. It had come true that the oddity really could be activated, it really worked. But what if the LGM's had assumed wrong? What if it would annihilate the whole solar system instead of opening some kind of portal into the wide unknown? And what then...? What would happen then?
Piecemeal the device began to resemble a honeycomb. The legs had subsided in the shape of a perfect hexagon, which was yet having the roundish figure. And then... more taciturnity. The space ghost stopped its spooking and just jutted there, staring hollowly at the spectators.
Ten minutes went forwards. Some impatience was observed among the ships. The device only stood there as an enormous hole, the stars glaring through it.
"What's that blasted idiot just standing there?" Buzz creaked his teeth jittery. "Now do something so we get this scorching waiting to end!"
"Umm... Buzz, that's a machine. I think... it can't hear you", Booster noted shyly.
"Buzz Lightyear is always sure!" the man snapped in his thoughts, but then in a way awoke. "Uh, sorry, Booster... I... I guess I'm just nervous because of this tension."
"Hmm... maybe it's recharging something", Mira understood.
"Yup, it needs to put its loose screws in places, change the waste oil, go to the annual vehicle inspection..." XR count with his fingers.
"I think there's something..." Buzz had the time to utter, until his answer was like in a bolt replied. A blinding flash filled the ether, and the near space turned to bathe in purple light. The force of this pulse was so forceful, that Team Lightyear and the rest of the population around them saw only crackling and hissing smolders in their fields of vision. As gradually the intelligent creatures were able to recover from the shock, they noticed the change the dimension opener had done to itself. Inside it, instead of the hollow gap, was a vibrating a field of this purple something. That sphere looked like it would be an abyss into something, so deep it was in the regard of a random witness. Not a soul in this galaxy yet was comprehensively aware of what that blazing iris actually was. Maybe it was a portal, a gate, a door to worlds of mysteries, maybe not...
Hundreds of pairs, triplets and other multiple numbers of eye organs gawped at the result of the operation. B.L.U.F.F. X-1014 was now even larger than Star Command HQ. As though, it had in a way gathered more size in the activation process. Obviously the energy pulse it had swallowed, had let its peculiar organic structure create more mass for it.
However, the politicians and nobility hoorayed like little kids in a circus show. They had gotten their candy bar, the large and dangerous activation seemed to have gotten a successful conclusion.
Commander Nebula, who had literally sucked his big moustache during all this time, barked now via the comlink to the LGM's to shut down the device.
"Now push the 'switch off' button! You can re-activate it any time you want. The play is over and I don't want that wreck goggling me through my office window like some cratery Cyclops!"
But now the little aliens faced a problem the size of a brontosaur. "Oo... umm... we actually can't do that".
"What do you mean you can't do that? Craters, just shut it down!"
"Umm... oo... we d-don't know how to do that."
This was the end of sentence. As Zeb ghastly comprehended that this thing would stay on, he flopped down nearly paralyzed into his seat. "Sweet mother of Shangri-La... what have they done, what have they done, what have they done..." he monotonically repeated.
"Eee... oo... but we can find a way to that, that's sure!" someone wheezed through the open com channel.
Indeed, it had not come to anyone's mind this far, that there should have been a means for de-activation, too. The LGM's had spoken about off-switching, but had badly forgotten to develop a trick for that. For the politicians only the opening had been important and so in their hastiness they had left behind this once crucial detail too. As always, those noble men wanted to listen to only themselves, their own benefits.
As the old Zeb still lounged fully perplexed in his commander chair, another private call arrived to him.
"This is Senator Ämpäri, the supervising leader of project B.L.U.F.F. X-1014." A dry and snappy voice brought Nebula into the real world. "You will now start to prepare sending the first explorers in."
"In? What? Where? Inside that warp? This dratted mess is all your fault, I'm not sending anybody in there! This machine needs to be shut down and now! People have a really bad feeling that this may become a catastrophe!" the Commander roared back.
"May I mention that I am a senator and I can apply the Parliament to vote for a new commander", Ämpäri carped.
"Star Command is MY creation, by blazes and their buckets! I order here!"
"Unfortunately the Alliance Laws have changed since you were hmm... having your summit. And what comes to your and your minions' so called ranger instinct... we do not consider such abracadabra here in the Parliament. You will start the preparations, and you can keep your Star Command."
This was merely a day of doom for Nebula. He had possibly not ever experienced such shocks at the same time as today. Not even the day when the comatose Zurg was brought from Planet Z and certain identities were revealed.
"Alright, alright, Mr. Ämpäri... You can have your exploring."
And thus the court of the blazing pupil little by little scattered away in their directions. The portal would have 24-hour UGT guarding, and by tomorrow, a group of space rangers with special gear would be sent to examine it closer... and maybe dive into those abysses of the purple, strange mouth.
With atrabilious minds Buzz, Zurg and rest of the chums returned to their homes. Team Lightyear got a quick command to join the first pioneers that would go and touch the infinity. So, the next day would maybe show a path to the future...
---------------------
According to Albert Einstein, time is relevant. Thus everything that depends on time is equally relevant. Another observer in another place senses the happenings differently. However, very far away from our Galaxy, so far that the imagination hardly can figure out the distances, something was faintly frizzling in somewhere dark. No light was there to illuminate the scene, almost only noises could be heard. Sizzling, blending with something that storm-tossedly squelched. Something seemed to approach the target that was keeping that demure crackling. That something then again kept the noise similar to a swash of a plastic bag full of water.
"Blrmbf tryyh grmbloff Blorrff blubbff titityy uiiks!" another mumble was mixed up with the cacophony.
"Brrlp, Glxblt! Kruiik kruiik brofflghtmh blraah uaah skviik kopoot kopoot kotkot kotiit!" came a reply to the previous splutter.
Let us take a small time machine and return to the moment a few seconds earlier. Or simply, let us take a quick flight to a few light seconds farther from the place, and we see the happening again, as if they would be freshly noveau occurrences. Also, a universal translator might come in handy, since the slosh that will be heard, will sound quite much more understandable if we can hear it in clear English. Hence, let us repeat the previously posed lines with translations.
"Lieutenant Blorrff! Important news, a blubbff has given a signal!"
"Indeed, officer Glxblt! That cannot be a wrong sign. Something, somewhere has activated a transferring port."
As the conversation has turned understandable, let us listen to it further. However, light cannot be provided to illuminate the stage. In this murkiness, it was hot and humid, nearly suffocating. It above all resembled a somber sauna, where the bathhouse oven had just been thrown full of water, and the steaming hot stones on it had evaporated it all in the air. Movement could be sensed, the air churned impalpably. Indeed, it was a room of some kind, where the dialogue was gone through. If a person could have touched the walls of the space, he would have soon drawn his hand away in disgust. The structures of the chamber would feel soft, rather like starchyish plastic foil under his fingertips, yet perspiring and a bit glutinous. They did bend, but not too much.
"Activate the searcher, Lieutenant Blorrff. It's important to see, where the target is, from where the signal is coming." More speech was audible.
"Yes, Sir!" A whirr followed, when some kind of small machine was switched on. This time, a very frail glow of bluish light could be seen in a corner of the same space. There was enough of it to reveal a console table of some kind. Although in this case it did not much resemble those tables, to which the residents of the Milky Way had used. It was not a classic comfortable wooden one with four legs, but merely bore likeliness to a hunch of jelly shaped in the form of a giant pie.
"The searcher says it is coming from a distant glompsf, from sector glaa-barf bbb-wzz."
"Glaa-barf? Lieutenant Blorrff, but hasn't that distance been passed a long, long time ago? There was supposed to be no life there."
"The searcher has not ever done errors, Officer Glxblt. Maybe there has been life in that glompsf already some time ago, but not intelligent enough to be able to understand things of higher kind."
"We shall take a careful study on this matter, before we announce this to the Superior."
"Indeed! He will be very content if the signal is authentic. In a long time, there has been no new biospheres for us."
"Or new slaves to take."
...to be continued... Feedback is welcome.
