Lexi took her place in line, stomach fluttering. After years of study, months of rigorous training including countless hours in a simulator, she faced the real thing. The star portal. It didn’t matter how many lectures she’d attended, how many questions she posed to people who’d already experienced transport. She was about to go hurtling through space to a distant planet.
One without a climate-controlled environment.
That made her more nervous than the thought of seeing strange species of animals or witnessing some naughty fondling between humans. She’d never experienced a temperature variation of more than ten degrees in her entire life. The city of East Metropolis was shrouded in an artificial atmosphere. Winter and summer did not exist.
For her trip to Neodyma, she’d been fitted with a cylerian. Thin, flesh-colored, and nearly transparent, it fit her like a second skin. She felt naked wearing it. Naked and bald, since it fit closely over her head, covering her unruly head of hair. It was designed to protect her body from fluctuations in temperature up to 150° Fahrenheit plus or minus, as well as from discomfort due to wind or rain.
Over the cylerian, a simple one-piece white garment that reminded her of an old-fashioned space suit covered her from head to toe. It provided not only modesty but an additional layer of protection, including a built-in oxygen rebreather in the headgear. Neodyma had an atmosphere similar to that on Earth, so she wouldn’t need it except in an emergency.
Lexi had never felt uncontrolled wind velocity but she’d witnessed the toll it had taken on her planet. As a student, she’d visited the all-glass observation deck on the 450thfloor of the Federation building. There people could see beyond the boundaries of the city, witness the ravages nature wrought on parts of Earth that weren’t protected.
Beyond the barrier, fierce storms raged. Lightning bolts sizzled. Tornadoes spun along unimpeded, wreaking havoc on the few buildings still standing in abandoned settlements.
There’s nothing to worry about, she told herself for the hundredth time.As long as you have the cylerian on, you’ll be fine.The synthetic material regulated her body’s temperate automatically, heating or cooling as needed. It also absorbed dead skin cells and human waste products, neutralized them, and secreted them through artificial pores. There’d be no need to take the suit off. Ever. Not to bathe, not even to take care of bodily functions. Lexi was especially happy about that. She’d heard horror stories about the primitive toilet facilities on Neodyma.
She shuffled forward in silence. Though they’d worked together, trained together, eaten every meal together for months, there was no good-natured banter going on among the team members. Every one of them knew the danger of what they were about to do. Star portals were unregulated by modern technology. Though there were many theories, modern science did not fully understand how they worked. People had stepped through them, never to be heard from again.
The portal she was about to enter ended on Neodyma. Two others had been discovered. One led to Gadolinium. That planet had already been the focus of several studies. The third portal had been sealed for centuries. It transported the user to Iridia.
Once a planet as lush as Earth, Iridia had suffered a global catastrophe. With their vast deposits of rare earth minerals like yttrium and samarium, Iridians had developed powerful lasers, superconductors, and nuclear batteries millennia before they were invented on Earth. But along with life-saving creations and cutting-edge technological devices, they also created super-weapons.
Long ago, a terrorist group on Iridia got hold of a cache of the weapons. They nearly wiped out all carbon-based life forms on the planet, leaving behind a desolate wasteland. Bombarded by radiation from the twin suns Phalyx and Zalyx, the badly damaged atmosphere had taken on a permanent reddish tinge
Centuries ago, the Federation sent a scout through the portal, a single soul who bravely volunteered. He reappeared weeks later. Starving, horribly disfigured, he died without uttering more than a few words to the startled guard who found him lying on the ground outside the portal.
Government officials interviewed the guard and heard testimony about the scout’s dying words. They gathered heads of state from all the nearby planets and met behind closed doors for days. When they emerged, the Interstellar Federation was born. The first act of the new Federation was to order the portal to Iridia sealed for all eternity. The second was to outlaw development of weapons made from any rare earth minerals in the galaxy.
Her thoughts were interrupted by a low murmur in the line ahead. Devon had stopped at the entrance to the portal. He turned to face the remaining team members.
“Friends and colleagues, we know not what faces us on the other side.” The somber tone of his voice surprised her. It wasn’t like him. Always irreverent, she could count on Devon to inject a note of humor into any situation.
“We travel now to a new world, a world filled with primitive beings, creatures who engage in bizarre erotic rituals such as we’ve never seen. I say — let’s get this party started!” With a whoop, he whirled, disappearing through the portal in a flash of light.
From his place on the observation platform, Director Nilsson’s voice rose, sputtering in outrage.
“You will disregard that unsanctioned outburst! This mission is of the gravest importance. Remember your goals, ladies and gentlemen. Remember your duty to the Federation.”
The low buzz rose, blocking out the rest of the director’s remarks. Lexi grinned. She hadn’t known Devon was a proponent of the movement. No wonder he’d jumped at the chance to go to Neodyma. She’d bet he was already planning to experiment, engaging in the act of coitus the first chance he got. He’d kept his support of the movement a carefully guarded secret even from her, knowing he’d be cut from the mission if it became known.
Transport halted while a trio of psychological evaluators was summoned to do a last-minute brain scan of the remaining team members. Lexi used the time to empty her mind of all the rebellious thoughts she’d been having, all the images she’d conjured up of forbidden physical contact. She had no doubt she’d be banned from entering the portal if they detected any such mental activity.
During the delay, she saw one of the technicians monitoring the portal slide up to the director. With a worried look on his face, he murmured something in Nilsson’s ear. Nilsson shook his head and waved the man back to his place.
When the psych evaluators arrived, Nilsson gave them hurried instructions. They surrounded the next person in line, closed their eyes, and began the process of scanning her mind. The room fell silent for what seemed like hours. Finally, they opened their eyes and nodded in unison to the director. That team member vanished through the portal.
The process sped up as one after another of her team disappeared through the glowing opening. Lexi noticed the light emanating into the room from one corner of the portal seemed to have taken on a slightly different hue, a faint greenish cast. She was about to bring it to the attention of one of the technicians when she caught the reflection of the emerald-green gown worn by a guest watching from the platform. Since no one seemed concerned, she dismissed the phenomenon as a simple refraction of light.
The evaluators did find unacceptable thoughts in the minds of two team members, barring them from entering the portal. Lexi’s heart sank. She could see the disappointment on their faces and vowed she wouldn’t be the third. When her turn came, she closed her eyes, relaxed, and concentrated on visualizing an equation she’d created for her doctoral dissertation.
She knew the moment they invaded her mind. The probing, the foreign presence rifling through her thoughts and memories, stripping her psyche bare. This mind scan was much harsher than any others she’d experienced. No preparation, no time to become accustomed to the sensation. She felt violated. Lexi wanted to scream for it to stop, but she forced herself to breathe slowly and remain calm.
Suddenly her mind was a void. They’d withdrawn their presence as rapidly as they entered. She felt a moment of sheer panic, then her own consciousness flooded back in. The trio nodded in unison and waved her by.
Her stomach in knots, Lexi squared her shoulders. She took a deep breath and one big step — and found herself hurtling through an endless black void at a terrifying speed. Flashes of light across the entire spectrum of the rainbow appeared at random, some far across the galaxy, some so near she swore she could reach out and touch them. A powerful force tumbled her head over heels, pulling in every direction at once, threatening to tear her limb from limb.
Lexi opened her mouth to scream, but the void sucked the air from her lungs. She’d heard of black holes. Wormholes that devoured everything they came in contact with. Even light could not escape. She wondered if she’d somehow fallen into one, if she’d be ripped apart until even the atoms in her body were reduced to free-floating protons and neutrons and electrons.
She couldn’t breathe, had no control of her body. She lost all sense of time and place, all feeling. There was only the ceaseless void, the incredible pressure. Bizarre images flashed by — formless clouds of gases in a whirlwind of colors, strange worlds orbited by dozens of moons whizzing by at a dizzying speed, some ghostly gray, some gaudy.
