Children Of Gaia

Chapter 16

"Bleh!" Maddison shivered, dropping her spoon back into the bowl of off-white gruel before her, "That is horrid," She announced rather obnoxiously while reaching for her cup.

"How can it be horrid?" argued Felix, "it has no taste, literally no taste!"

"Yeah and that's why it's so vile, it's like I'm eating nothing, it just creeps me out," Maddison hissed.

"Well it's the only thing on the menu, so get used to it," pointed out Lloyd, pulling faces of perseverance as he continued slurping from his bowl. Felix tried with little success to keep from laughing at Lloyd's face.

"At least nothing died to make it I guess," she murmured trying to justify their particularly odd and underwhelming offerings, "wait, did anything?" Maddison barked.

"No," answered Felix bluntly, "Erranos was quite clear on that. Maybe if you listened to him more intently," he added sarcastically. To which Maddison scowled.

"I guess I'll try again later, maybe then I'll have the stomach for it," sighed Maddison excusing herself from their table. "I'll be with Emelia if anyone wants me," she announced shooting a glance towards Felix as she left the room. The door slid open and she stepped out into the hall tripping over straight away. She hit the floor with a mighty thud.

"Pardon me miss," came a voice from the floor. Maddison sat up rubbing her elbow.

Felix ran to her aid, "you alright Maddie?" He asked as he offered her a hand up.

"Bloody crab bot things!" She cursed as Felix helped her up, "they're everywhere, this the third time now," Maddison admitted angrily.

The Tarras were small six legged maintenance and repair units no bigger than a house cat, that roamed Tarraxen ships, sometimes in their thousands. Erranos had programmed them to speak English and to assist the humans wherever required, but the Tarras mostly ended up having to escort them when they became lost, which was quite often on such a vast and unknown ship. With only limited maintenance to be performed daily, most online Tarras found themselves cleaning up after their guests, without any hint of complaint no less.

Eva had supplied Erranos with coordinates for Gaia's trajectory based on the time they first departed. Erranos attempted to explain the way Tarraxen ships travelled by folding space to the humans, but only Eva had the slightest grasp on the concept. They were quite pleased however, to learn that their journey back to Gaia would only take three weeks or so.

Still curious about the Scourge and the threat it could pose to them, Lloyd sought to ask Erranos as much as he could. Erranos instead of wasting time answering dozens of repetitious questions, took them to a large room which he advised was an information access point. Erranos instructed them to become comfortable and allow their minds to be free of thought. Felix and Maddison found this concept simple and began to relax quite quickly, Lloyd took a moment longer, but Eva struggled to achieve a similar state of Zen. Her years of mental conditioning were working against her as she was unable to access what the others had so easily. Felix reached over to Eva placing his hand on her arm. Without saying a word he attempted to connect with her the way the Drusai had taught him. Eva's mind slowly began to centre and satisfied he had helped enough Felix pulled his hand back. Erranos explained the system would take direct precedent over their sensory perception to provide them with information directly to their minds so that they could see and hear things as if they had been present when the events had transpired.

Felix reopened his eyes and found he was alone and completely surrounded by darkness, a vast emptiness. Text appeared before him, the symbols were exotic, unknown, and presumably Tarraxen. An object manifested in the centre but was too blurry to recognise. The imagine gained clarity and the text distorted changing into English. They could all see it, a beautiful blue jewel they each first mistook for Earth until reading the translated text.