TRAVELER

CHAPTER 3

I drifted back nostalgically to my childhood where I grew up near the fault lines. In my old home town, thousands of passenger ships streaked through the system every day. The fault lines never touch planetary bodies, they intersected space above or below the orbital plane. I remember watching the commotion from my small space skiff as a ship arrived to off load people and goods. A thousand shuttles would streak from the planet's surface in a mad rush to complete the task at hand. It was synchronized chaos getting everything done in time and I marveled how no one got killed in the process.

The fault lines had been uncovered long ago, stripped from another dimension like gold from a mine, they were found to permeate the known Galaxy. Galactic North and South, East and West, they followed hidden lines of force in another dimension. The mining process was a complex operation that would uncover a small portion akin to a subway station, leaving the rest of the line hidden.

My heart would pound in my chest as my skiff skimmed the top of the atmosphere, not quite capable of space flight, I was still close enough to be dwarfed by the massive structures that surrounded the openings. The fault lines were wide enough for any number of ships to pass by each other, unhindered by other traffic.

That was long ago. We were travelling on the ship known as Double Entendre. It was a traveler ship aligned with the galactic West. She was the same at both ends, a mirror image coming or going. One end perpetually heading East the other end was a duplicate, time locked into the dimensional fault lines, she could never deviate from her course. You could never tell if she was coming or going when she was sitting at the station. And now she was heading West into the dust lane surrounding the Milpath Galaxy, where a thousand Globular Clusters awaited us.

It was time for Stephano to relinquish control of his body so Cokker could have five hours before bedtime. When two partners were being intimate, Cokker buried his head in the subconscious sand and chose to remain celibate for the duration of the trip. Not only did he abstain, but he didn't want to watch either. For him this journey was one of personal growth as he seemed to be a pretty normal guy with no hang ups like the rest of us. No smoking, no drinking, no drugs; just your average human looking for the same answers we all were.

It was good he was along for the ride; his demeanor lent an air of stability to our house of personalities. Just because he chose not participate in some activities didn't mean he was a wuss. On the contrary, he was a serious seeker who had plans and dreams to extract the most enlightenment from the journey.