Sliding Into Antar
Antarian Storms
Chapter 6
VI
The morning of the following day was filled with great excitement on the New Granolith. Antar was in sight. Okay, if one used the RV goggles, Antar was in sight. The newest Remote Vision goggles could magnify a speck of light by a factor of three thousand. To the naked eye, Antar was nowhere near visible yet, but at the speed the New Granolith was traveling, it was expected to become visible to the naked eye within two more hours. One hour after that, they would be approaching the planet. Twenty minutes after that… they would be home. HOME! The word was on the lips, in the minds, and in the hearts of every person on the ship. They had not been home in almost two months now, and everyone was anxious to see their children and their own planet again.
"What do you think our vortex-sliding friends are doing right now," Michael asked, turning his co-pilot's seat around to face Max.
Max shrugged. "Getting on with their lives, I imagine. They have a lot of catching up to do. Their lives have been turned upside down for almost a year now.
"I can't imagine being totally lost out here for that long," Liz said sadly. "I don't know how they did it and didn't lose their will to go on… and even kept a sense of humor."
"Just like your double in the world we were just on did it, I imagine," Tess said. "The FBI guys shot her and paralyzed her, they told her that Max, Michael, Isabel, and Maria were dead, they locked her and Alex up in an insane asylum, and they tried repeatedly to kill her, and still she survived and even found the others."
"She WAS amazing, wasn't she," Liz said, somehow not feeling at all uncomfortable about praising her own double's courage.
"They were all amazing," Michael said. "Those guys have got a lot of guts. I've got to give 'em that. The vortex sliders do, too."
Liz and Maria nodded.
"You think we'll ever see them again, Max," Tess asked.
Max thought about it and laughed. "I doubt it. We don't even know which dimension they live in. Varec just sent them back to their original point of origin. It had to be their home, since it was where they started out from."
"Yeah," Tess mused. "They were a lot of fun, though. They had a lot of interesting stories to tell about all the worlds they'd been to. I hope we see them again."
"Well, I would never say never, Tess… but don't count on it," Michael said. "Now that they're home, they'll probably throw that timer thing in the next vortex. I know I would."
Tess laughed.
"I'm gonna miss them, though," Maria said. "It was nice to have some company for a while."
Max nodded. "Yeah."
As Michael turned around, he noticed Alex and Isabel quietly edging toward the door. It took him only a moment to realize where they were going…
"Uh, Max… can you handle the piloting for the next hour or so, while Maria and I…"
Alex turned and headed out the door with Isabel at a fast pace.
"No you don't!" Michael shouted, grabbing Maria by the hand and racing for the door behind them."
"They'll get to the ascension chamber before we do," Maria said.
Michael looked around quickly. "Liz? Can I borrow your sphere… just for a minute?"
Liz laughed. "What? No! That would be cheating, Michael! If they get to the observatory first they get there first, that's all."
Michael raced for the ascension chamber with Maria in tow. As fate would have it, Alex and Isabel had had to wait for the chamber to come back down, and they were just getting in. Michael leapt into the chamber with Alex and Isabel, pulling Maria with him.
There was a pregnant silence as the ascension chamber rose then stopped on the top level. The door opened, and Michael and Alex both leapt out, racing for the sofa in the back of the room as though it were the final goal of a relay race. Both of them leapt at the same time, Alex falling on top of Michael on the sofa.
Alex lifted his head and looked Michael in the eyes. "I got here first. It's ours."
"I was first," Michael said.
There was a cough from the direction of the ascension chamber, and both Alex and Michael turned their heads to look. Maria and Isabel stood in the chamber tapping their toes on the floor…
"Did you guys forget something," Maria asked.
"Like US," Isabel said.
"When you get through hugging Alex," Maria said, "Can I get some?"
Michael and Alex looked at each other and both of them leapt up from the couch. Michael brushed himself off compulsively. Alex stood there, looking uneasy and embarrassed.
"You know," Isabel said, "In about two hours, everybody on the ship is going to be up here looking for Antar as we get closer.
"Yeah, I know," Alex said. "I just wanted you and me to have a little time to ourselves before the rush started."
Isabel smiled and walked over to Alex then put both arms around him and kissed him. "Save that thought, lover boy. When we get to Antar, I'm going to collect on it… with interest."
Maria put her arms around Michael and kissed him, too. "What Isabel said… the same thing goes for me."
Michael grinned. "Well… you ARE a lot more kissable than Alex."
"That's your opinion," Isabel said.
Michael sighed and looked at Maria then back at Isabel and Alex… "All right, you guys can have the observatory. You were headed this way first, I guess, anyway. Maria and I'll go to the gardens."
He looked at Maria… "Is that okay?"
Maria nodded and smiled. "More than okay. It's private."
Michael grinned. "Yeah, it is… isn't it?"
As Isabel had predicted, in less than two hours, the others began to show up in the observatory, hoping to get a first glimpse of Antar… and home. The first ones to show up were Tess and Rayylar. Then Jim and Kyle came in together. Shortly after them, Michael and Maria returned from their trip to the gardens. Max and Liz had stayed on the control bridge together, along with Varec, who temporarily assumed Michael's co-pilot position, though they all knew that the ship could fly with only one pilot… or even with none, if need be, so long as the computer flight program had been set and nothing unexpected happened.
It wasn't long before Jim spotted Antar. All of them had already seen it, using the RV goggles, but Jim spotted the tiny golden orb in the distance before any of the others did… without the RV goggles. The orb seemed to grow quickly, going from the size of a pinhead to the size of an orange in slightly less than twenty minutes… and from the size of an orange to the size of a basketball in the next ten minutes. Fifteen minutes after that, they were preparing to enter the atmosphere.
Michael and Maria returned to the bridge, where Michael reassumed control of the co-pilot's panel.
"Looks like everything is still right where we left it," Michael joked.
Max smiled, then he turned the nose of the ship down slightly and dropped into the atmosphere. What happened next seemed like a dream… a bad one. Almost as soon as the ship touched the atmosphere, the blue skies and clear golden sea below began to turn black and soupy. Then the ship was hit by a bolt of lightning out of nowhere. Within seconds after that, the ship was literally engulfed in torrential weather and incredible flashes of lightning from every different direction at once. The ship rocked to the right and fell back to the left, losing altitude rapidly. Then, just as suddenly, it surged and rose again, as though it had hit a powerful, concentrated updraft.
"My God!" Max exclaimed. "I've never seen a storm come up so suddenly on Antar."
"I've never seen a STORM like this one on Antar," Michael said, trying to brace himself in his seat as the ship lurched again.
"Nor have I," Varec said. "It appears to cover the entire northern hemisphere… at least… maybe even the entire planet."
"Did you see how fast everything changed," Liz said, holding onto the back of Max's chair tightly. "The sky was blue and cloud-free just a minute ago. Now it's blacker than midnight! And the sea! The sea turned black, too!"
"How can you tell," Maria asked. "I can't even see it anymore."
"I saw it right before the sky closed in on us," Liz said… "Well, anyway, I think I did."
Max swallowed and adjusted the attitude dampers slightly to stabilize the ship. It seemed to work. An older ship would not have had all the special equipment that Varec had had installed in the New Granolith and probably would have been doomed and crashed.
Max took the ship down to five hundred feet above sea level, but they still couldn't see anything but the soupy blackness around them, lit up by relentless lightning bolts that continued to pound the ship mercilessly from every direction. Michael passed his hand over a sensor, and a screen came alive in front of them, displaying a virtual image of the ship and the planet below. At the bottom of the screen, numbers and data, in Antarian, flowed continuously from right to left, telling them the ship's altitude and position second by second.
Eight minutes later… though it seemed like an hour… the ship set itself down on solid ground. Actually, it set itself down fifteen feet above the ground, on a magnetic field created by the anti-gravity repulsors, but the anti-gravity repulsors locked the ship in place in that position just as though the ship itself were on the ground. The ship would not move, regardless of weather conditions, while the anti-grav was engaged.
According to all the data, they were in CoruzAntar, Antar's capitol, in a large field near the lab that normally housed the New Granolith. Varec activated the ship's ground shields and quickly entered a few calculations into the ship's computers, expanding the shield's range outward sufficiently so that they would be able to transport down without being hit by lightning or drenched by the torrential black rains.
Michael went first, appearing on the ground beneath the ship in an invisible ionic beam. Max followed Michael, and Varec went next. After them came Jim, followed by Kyle, Alex, Isabel, Liz, Maria, Tess, and Rayylar. Soon, everyone was on the ground… but they were pretty much confined to the area that the shield covered. No one was going to venture out unprotected into the strange weather beyond the shield's range.
"What do we do now," Liz asked. Max shook his head, thinking.
"I have an idea," Michael said, disappearing back into the ship. A little over four minutes later, the ship's ramp came down and something started down it. Liz and Maria looked at each other and, in spite of their fears and everything that had been happening, both of them laughed out loud.
"The Snapples truck! I didn't know we still had that on the ship," Maria said."
"Michael thought he might need it if we ever went back to earth again… to bring, uh, supplies to the ship," Max said.
Michael pulled the truck up beside the others and rolled the window down…
"Anyone going to the palace? Hop in. Rides are free today."
The others all piled into the back of the truck, and Max worked his way forward into the seat beside Michael…
"Do you think you can find the palace in this weather, Michael? I can't see anything out there. That black rain is impenetrable. And this truck doesn't hover… if you run into a ditch…"
"I'll find it," Michael said with confidence. Just hold on."
Michael turned the truck around and headed in the direction of the palace. Though the air all around them was soupy black and visibility all but non-existent, somehow he managed to stay on the road that led to the palace. They were about half way there when things changed again… unfortunately, not for the better. The truck had already taken several lightning hits, but what hit it this time was hard… and fiery. There were gasps and a couple of muffled screams from the back of the truck, as a small fireball passed through the truck, barely missing Varec.
"What was that?" Maria screamed.
Michael looked out the windshield. It was raining fireballs everywhere in the sky, and some of them were beginning to reach the ground. Then Max saw where they were coming from… a huge meteor that was headed straight toward CoruzAntar, and coming fast. The fireballs appeared to be breaking off from it. Max gasped audibly and pointed, but Michael had already seen it. So had Varec.
Suddenly, Michael veered the truck violently to avoid a larger fireball that plowed into the ground directly in front of them, and the truck tilted. Then slowly… unstoppably… as though in a dream… the truck rolled over onto its side.
"This isn't right," Varec said.
"You're telling me!" Alex exclaimed, as everyone scrambled to get back up again and Jim kicked open the back doors of the truck.
"What do you mean… not right," Max and Michael both asked at the same time.
"I don't know… exactly," Varec said… "But it's not right. That meteor up there is getting larger very quickly."
"Yeah, it's getting CLOSER very quickly," Michael exclaimed.
Varec shook his head. "The angle is all wrong for the rate of optical perspective augmentation."
"Only Varec can be about to die and be totally thrilled about learning something new," Rayylar said, incredulous.
"No, no!" Varec shook his head. "You don't see! It can't be real. At the angle the meteor is falling, it should increase in perspective exponentially… but not as fast as it is. The rate is all wrong."
"What are you saying," Max asked, turning toward Varec and giving him his complete attention. "If I understand you right… are you saying that there's no meteor out there?"
Varec nodded.
"And no fireballs?" Michael asked.
Varec nodded… "And probably no lightning or bad weather. Someone out there is putting on a show for our benefit… to frighten us away."
"Well, they're doing a hell of a good job of it," Michael said, glancing back up at the fast approaching meteor. He was sure that he could feel heat radiating from it now.
"Tess," Liz mused, turning around, as an idea came into her mind. "Could you create a mind warp that would make someone out there think they saw the New Granolith fly away… and make all of us invisible?"
"I don't know," Tess said, shaking her head, uncertain, "How far would I have to extend the mind warp?"
"I don't know," Liz admitted, "As far as you can. We don't know where the person is who's doing this."
"I may not have enough power," Tess said ruefully, "But I'll try."
"Do it," Max said, encouraging her. "It could work if they're nearby."
Tess nodded then closed her eyes and concentrated. For twenty to thirty seconds, nothing happened. Then, as suddenly as everything had started, the meteor, the black rain, the lightning, the fireballs, all of it dissolved into thin air and simply disappeared as though it had never existed at all. The sky was blue, clear, and beautiful.
"IN-credible," Alex said, looking around.
"Unbelievable," Kyle mumbled, shaking his head.
Max turned around to look at their overturned truck but noticed that someone else had taken an interest in it, too. He nudged Michael and pointed. Michael turned and looked, then everyone else turned around and looked. The truck was being carefully picked over… by children.
tbc