Time, and other inconsequential things

Chapter Seven

CHAPTER SEVEN

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She pulled the suit visor down and looked, the power sources were all around her it seemed. Most of the sources were singular points of light. A larger cluster of sources gathered near the Sun Cap, nearly a dozen of those sources were ringed.

< Tyra? What do the rings mean? >

< Ships... ship main reactors. That many still running. We might find a working ship? Maybe one we can take? >

< Where should we start? >

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This station was much the same as the other. But also, so different. No open lakes and rivers. The core was filled with obscure structures. Many with no obvious purpose. Some looked like particle accelerators, most though matched nothing she knew.

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Hayley stood in a huge open hanger, before a vault door. She on this side, the gathered power sources on the other. The exterior doors, to the side, responded instantly to the Lock Breaker. The vault door did not.

< Tyra? What's wrong? > as the Lock Breaker gave up and shut down again.

< Remember what I said about needing the owner to open some doors for you? These are doors like that. These symbols here indicate there is a remote location, that must be unlocked simultaneously. There, up there, in the observation room. >

Only a few steps away, and five stories above them.

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Hayley had been on the station for three months. Slowly working her way up the ladder. Only intense biofeedback controlled the nausea and fatigue. All day she read up on the station experiments and her work-related texts, all evening she read on the pregnancy. How the hell had women put up with this for millions of years?

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"Doctor Alan Johns? This is Amanda Klein, she is new in the Forerunner Department." Hayley pushed a carefully focused surge of familiarity. Recalling her cover story, as she smiled brightly.

"Amanda Klein? Have we met before?"

"Hyperion University, 2796, you gave a speech on the Socioeconomic repercussions of Transdimensional travel of goods and services. I was second row center, but you never called on me to give a question." She gave a pouting moue.

"What would your question have been?" He said as he relaxed back in his chair and crossed his arms.

"No offense, but weren't the concepts presented anthropomorphized as to what a Human society's reaction would be, and not at all certain as we can only theorize on the cultures and mores of the various forerunner and precursor species?"

"Oh, Doctor Benning, I simply must have this one!"

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Three weeks later, Hayley rose from the bed. Alan already sleeping. She entered his access codes and started reading the inventory of the items in the ship vault. Each having an accompanying holo that drifted above the keyboard. Each image being commented on internally.

A boxy cylinder some four meters long.

< Vreen Planet Shuttle >

Something that looked like a guppy that had swallowed a marble.

< Chel Life Pod >

A melted piece of taffy that someone had punched holes in.

< Chel Crusier, the forward third or so >