Double Full Moon Night by Gentry Lee

Author:Gentry Lee
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Science Fiction, Fiction, Adventure, General
ISBN: 9780606192736
Publisher: Spectra
Published: 1999-01-02T05:00:00+00:00

THE EAGLE, PUNCTUAL as always, arrived at Mafia’s apartment at the appointed time. After exchanging greetings, Maria followed him through the sterile corridors of the secdon of the Habitation Module that housed all the humans and the octospiders. When they reached the sealed airlock and gates that separated their environment flom others in the module, the Eagle handed Maria a space suit complete with a transparent helmet that would fit over her head.

“Are you still certain that you want to do this?” the alien asked as Maria was adjusting her new clothing and helmet. She nodded.

By some unknown process the Eagle activated the apparatus controlling the series of gates and they passed into another area with similar offwhite corridors. Parked at the first junction in the new region was a small wheeled vehicle with two seats. Maria climbed in next to the Eagle and the doors to the windowless vehicle sealed. “For security reasons, you will not be allowed to see outside the car:’ the Eagle said matter-of-factly.

“You may be returning to your apartments and we do not want you to have any knowledge of the creatures living in your immediate vicinity;”

After riding in silence for a few minutes, Maria asked the Eagle where they were going. “To the transportation center of the Habitation Module,” he replied. “the place you arrived when you were first transferred here from the starfish. Then we will be transported to the Engineering Module, where the space shuttle that will fly us to our destination is being constructed.”

“You are making a special spaceship for me, just for this trip?” Maria asked in astonishment.

“Yes,” the Eagle said.

“But why?” Maria said. “Why would you go to all that trouble?”

“We wouldn’t ordinarily;” the Eagle answered. “Our decision to permit your excursion was based on a complicated objective fimction in which the primary weighting was the likelihood of our obtaining any new or characterizing data about the ribbon culture for our files.”

Maria laughed. “I have no idea what you just told me,”

she said.

The Eagle looked at her. “In simpler language, we have our own reasons for supporting this endeavor.”

When Maria and the Eagle disembarked from their small wheeled car, they were in a large room right next to the transportation center. Through the huge transparent window on the side of the room, Maria could see a long thin passageway, with blinking lights, stretching far into the distance. At the far end the lights became connected to each other and to an illuminated sphere, another of the vertices of the tetrahedron that formed the Node.

Maria remembered the confusion and uncertainty she had felt the first time that she had stood in front of this same window, shortly afler the shuttles carrying the occupants of the starfish had docked at the Habitation Module. This time, too, her heart was racing wildly, in anticipation of the adventure she had decided to undertake. But since she was not surrounded by others and being pressed to move forward, Maria took several minutes to enjoy the spectacular view out the window.

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