Take Me Home by M. Marinan

Author:M. Marinan
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: romance, adventure, humor, humour, dystopian, alien contact, clean, scifi action
Publisher: M. Marinan

DEMI

I spend my spare time making my way around the suite, looking for a remote or key or useful guide labelled ‘translocator’, but find nothing I can understand.

I’m so bored that I don’t even feel anxious, in spite of all the things that could worry me. I can’t leave, either. I can move around the suite, but the oval door leading to the outside hall won’t open for me.

That seems at odds with what Kris told me earlier about staying in the Lystra block, which implies more freedom than I’ve currently got. But perhaps Petra didn’t get the memo when she brought me here.

Some hours pass – maybe it could be mid-afternoon, if days are counted the same here –then suddenly the outside door opens and Kris steps inside.

I launch myself away from the desk/shelf thing where he’d got my translator earpieces and try to look casual. No, I wasn’t just rummaging through all your drawers.

I move towards him, intending to ask him to take me back to the screens where I can speak to my friends. But then I see his face. He looks weary, lined, with shadows under his bright eyes.

I guess even genetically perfect clones can get tired.

“Hard day?” I ask.

Kris smiles a little. “Something like that. I see you managed not to go through any airlocks while I was gone. Well done.”

“Uh…thanks. How was your…ah, meeting?”

Kris’s smile falters. “It went as expected.” He moves over to the desk-shelf I just fled from and sits down in front of it, then begins rummaging around. “But let’s not speak of that now. I have something you may find interesting.” A moment later he holds out a small white stick.

I stare at it, and he adds, “This gives manual access to translocators and quarantine chambers. Of course, we only use it in emergencies when individual access is broken or overridden.”

It’s a sort of remote control, I realise. This is basically what I’ve been looking for all day, in between forced naps and exercise time. And now he’s holding it out, right in my face. For a moment I visualise myself snatching it, pressing buttons madly…and ending up spinning in space outside Halfway Point.

I swallow, feeling my eyes widen. “How does it work?”

Kris points at various bumps on its surface. “Because it is for emergencies, it is preset for certain locations. This one takes you straight to Halfway Point’s main landing pad,” – now he points to a raised round ball – “and this one opens any chamber.”

“Are you…are you offering it to me?”

“Of course not,” he replies briskly, moving the remote away and sitting it on the nearby desk. “It would be irresponsible for me to give such a thing to a young person with little experience of this place. But I would like you to be prepared in case of emergencies.”

That’s the third time he’s said ‘emergencies’, and I take the hint. “Are we going to have a problem?” I ask carefully.

“I expect we will soon enough. I am not popular with some of High Priates, and they do not fail to tell me so.

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