Jake and Ming did convey the Emperor’s coordinates to the ladies on the space station who agreed to take the vacikarce down. The vacikarce was still sitting in the middle of the courtyard and upon Jang’s instructions would re-cloak and automatically return to the space station.
Tomorrow for the Emperor was two days away for Riojme and Jang who had synchronized their sleep cycle to match Jake and Ming’s. When the day came, Jake wondered if they would be able to take an airplane to the destination. He hadn’t seen any before on the planet. Along with Skepre and Tance he was escorted to what appeared to be a subway station. He asked Skepre to describe the technology. Skepre explained that it was very efficient to move people long distances though underground tubes in which the air had been removed. Special coatings and the materials that the tubes were made of prevented loss of the vacuum and special air locking mechanisms were set up to allow people to board. The trains were levitated by magnets and energy loss through friction was almost entirely eliminated. The upfront costs of such a system were enormous but when allocated out over decades it was very cheap and the emperors wisely had made such investments many centuries earlier. Jake was certain that even had such technologies existed on earth, no government preceding the Aye’s would have been farsighted enough to implement them.
They got aboard the train in which apparently all the normal passengers were evicted and were pleased that two human-style seats were installed. The train started with a hum and the same acceleration one would experience in commercial air travel but it lasted longer. Within less than an hour they arrived at their destination. Jang and Riojme were already there when they got out.
They explained that they had landed at the designated coordinates that were in a completely barren desert plain. Some Replini guards had greeted them and brought them into a small building that contained and elevator. They had been on an elevator ride that lasted five minutes.
They were escorted through what felt like miles of bland corridors until they reached a special, very elaborately marked door. They walked through and into an enormous room.
