Sapphire Star

Chapter 7 Portal

As the cool day changed into a warmer evening we all unpacked our sleeping bags unrolling them and the pillows so they would fluff out. Dipper then returned to the campfire. We had a makeshift circle of plastic and metal lawn chairs huddled around the campfire. Grunkle Stan was cleaning some of the fish that he, Mabel, and Grunkle Ford had caught. Mabel was helping him with the cooking part. She took the filets and fish chunks and dipped them in egg and then seasoned breafing. She then added butter to the cast iron skillet and as it melted and browned she began to add the fish to the skillet. In no time at all they had everyone's full attention. "It's a good thing you guys caught so many," I said. "Sorry, we didn't help much." Pacifica looked a little embarrassed. "That's ok," Mabel said "I know you guys talked about important stuff. Pacifica looked at me as if to ask if I said anything. Mable smiled, "Twin telepathy". Pacifica smilled. "You guys are good," she lauded.

I then heard Grunkle Ford calling my name. I looked up to see him waving me over excitedly. "I've got to go," I said giving Pacifica an apologetic look. She smiled and said, "Go get your nerd on," with good nature. I smirked back at her before I ran over to Grunkle Ford by his console and antenna array. "I've found one!" he said striking a key on the keyboard. The screen beeped as a monochrome green line of text spit out a tensor matrix followed by longitude, latitude, and elevation heading. "Bingo!" said Ford. Look at the distance!" It read 976 yards. "That's about half a mile!" I said excitedly. "We can all hike out there!"

I rounded everyone up while Grunkle Ford explained what he had found. Ten minutes later we were hiking down a trail away from the campsite. Grunkle Stan, Soos, and Wendy stayed to watch the camp. We walked at a brisk pace excited to see what we would find. Grunkle Ford kept checking his portable. "Two hundred and fifty yards," he said. As we got closer the forest began to slope downward. As I looked up I noticed the slope was mirrored far ahead and on the other side. We were entering a basin valley in the forest. Eventually, we got to the bottom and followed the stream towards the ping. "Fifty yards," Grunkle Ford said. "Now be very careful," Ford said. "Sometimes they are hard to see. Stick together, and absolutely no stragglers." I had never heard him so serious, but then I considered he was in essence solely responsible for all three of our safety if anything happened. I walked slowly peering through the dense underbrush. All I could see was leaves bushes and shadows. "I think I found something!" Pacifica called out near me. Sure enough, strait where she was facing about thirty yards just within a little hallow I could see a weird green flicker reflected off of the surrounding trees and dense foliage. As we drew closer into the hallow we saw it. A roughly twenty-foot wide arch protruding two-thirds of the way out of the ground. "Good eye Pacifica," Grunkle Ford said clearly impressed.

We stopped just shy of the rift. The edges were bright electric green, which sharply contrasted what was displayed in the Rift...nothing. Absolutely nothing other than the ground leading into the portal visible only by the small amount of light in the clearing. The rest was obscured in darkness almost absolute. Ford nodded at me. I grabbed the equipment pack and opened the back zipper. I grabbed four of the red road flares. I put three in the cargo pocket of my khaki shorts and twisted the cap off of the remaining flare. I turned the striking end of the cap and struck it against the flare in a sweeping motion like a match head making sure to point the end away from myself and everyone else. As it caught it burst to life in a practically blinding red and white magnesium bright light in the low light of the hollow. I whipped the flare about sixty feet into the Portal archway. "Extraordinary!" Grunkle Ford said. I could see what appeared to be symmetrically spaced cylindrical columns that reached upward and high out of sight within the impending darkness beyond the flare's limited range. They were spaced out about ten feet apart on all sides giving it an eerie feel of intelligence about it. Grunkle Ford said, "I have never seen a dimensional portal with no light. Seeing as the portal is stable for the time being, this is worth exploring."