Chapter 8
I woke in an all too familiar clean, white room. For a second I was sure we scrubbed. I was sure I was back in the medical ward on Utopia, burned, beaten, broken from some horrid crash. I calmed myself, let my brain catch up. I pushed up on my elbows and looked around. It was a similar room, that was for sure. But there were some important differences. The biggest was that I wasn't alone. Everybody in my team was in the room with me, sleeping off the after affects of the travel. My room in Utopia hadn't been close to big enough to fit us all.
I sat and dangled my feet over the edge of the bed, slowly breathing deeply in the supplied oxygen. My head felt like a little man ran around hammering from the inside. It was the gas. The gas and the speed of travel.
I just had to catch up. I repeated that to myself over and over.
I breathed and rubbed my eyes. They focused. We made the flight. We landed. I remember being awake enough to exit. We all were. We walked like robots, off the craft, down some extended hallway, straight into an elevator. Down, down, down. I remembered being hooked up to the oxygen. I looked at my arm. It had an IV in, too. I squinted to read the writing. Saline. Just fluids. We never did this on our ship. But then again, it sometimes took a couple days to shake off the effects of high speed travel. No wonder Christophe looked so wiped when he got back.
I looked down the row of beds. They were still catching up. Make it to a bed, lie down, and let the body do what it will. Standard protocol. I wondered what kind of pilots were in the control room. Had to be bots. I've been doing jumps of different kinds my whole life, and this relatively short hop knocked me out. I couldn't imagine anyone being able to handle it enough to guide an aircraft. It had to be piloted by bots. I couldn't think of any other way.
I reached my arms up and stretched. The IV pulled, so I untaped it and slid it out. I got up and instantly felt the weight difference from Utopia. Even Utopia's artificial gravity system hadn't been enough to simulate true Earth gravity.
Earth. I was on Earth.
I looked to a bank of windows. Some sort of tinting was over them. I padded over, holding the furniture and wall as I went for support. The gravity would definitely take some getting used to. There was a control panel, and I slid my finger over the sensor. The tinting on the window in front of me lightened. I didn't want to wake everyone. I just wanted to see it. I slid the sensor until I could see clearly outside but still have most of the light blocked. It was day time. Where ever we were, it was full day. I could see the sun high in the sky. A mountain. A city.
And people.
So. Many. People.
Cars. Aerobuses. Trains. People riding. People walking. People swarming in the fresh air, floors and floors below. They scurried. They hurried. They moved and pushed and drove and ran and cycled and...
None of them even knew I was there. None of them could see me. They didn't even yet know I existed. I looked down on them all. I could have taken them all.
I shook my head and felt a shiver. Where did that disturbing thought come from?
"So peaceful, isn't it?"
Christophe's voice made me jump out of my skin.
He laughed. "I thought you heard me say hello." He was talking very softly. I noticed he didn't have an IV at all. He said he travels a lot. Perhaps he just got used to it over time.
"Listen. All those people and not one sound."
He was right. I turned to look. I couldn't hear anything in the room but the soft flow of breath of those sleeping.
"You step out that door down there and the noise hits you like a wall." He leaned his head on the glass like me. "Amazing what technology can do."
"Yeah."
We stood looking at Earth. Looking at people. Looking at what they all wanted me to call my home.
"Is it like Laak'sa?"
That was absurd. I was awake a whole five minutes. How could I possibly know? But I did. Already I did. "It's heavy here."
"Mm. I love Mars. It feels like you've shed twenty pounds."
"And there's one star here, not two."
"What else?"
I shrugged. "I don't know. I just got here!"
"Try. You're a scientist. Try."
What was he doing? He had that sound to his voice again, the same as he got when talking about some new discovery or theory.
I scanned the city below. Differences. "There are a lot of people crammed together."
"Doesn't Laak'sa have more?"
"Yes, but it's taller. Spread up, not crammed all into one level. That way, it never really feels crowded unless there's an assembly. Why don't they build more here? Why aren't there upper levels?"
Christophe gave a small laugh. "I don't know."
"The buildings are dull. On Laak'sa, they shine with an iridescence because of the metal."
"All of them?"
"Yes. And it's green there. Everything, practically even the air. Everything here is..." I didn't want to say dirty or boring, even though that's exactly how it looked. "It's plain."
"This is just the city. There's great beauty in other places. More than just streets and people and concrete and smog."
I looked back at the sight below. "The transports are different. There's a lot of ground transport here, isn't there?"
"Trains, bikes, cars. Yes."
"Maybe because of the softer ground, there's a lot more flying on Laak'sa. More rivers. More plants. More noise. Always noise. Everywhere."
"As I said, technology." He tapped the glass.
"And they have technology, too. But there's still noise. A hum that's everywhere. A buzz. The water rushing. The storms brewing. The ocean crashing. Even in the city. Even through the city." I shook my head. "It's very different."
Christophe looked out over the city. "I think I would like your Laak'sa, Jake. I think I would like it very much."
It felt like he was telling me something he wasn't saying. I have thought about that moment a lot. It really meant something, to him and to me, and I can't for the life of me figure out what.
"I hope you find some differences about Earth that you like."
I hoped so, too.
I wanted that moment to stretch on. The discovery. The quick judgments all people of science think they're entitled to, and the slow examination and validation of them after that. I wanted to savor it. I wanted a few more minutes to just stand and look and absorb and to do it with Christophe. He understood something the others did not. But people began to wake. Christophe left the ward to make our arrangements. It occurred to me as he was walking away that he was not in a uniform, at least not a travel one like we wore. He was in full dress. He looked...perfect. As he did the first time we met. He was on the clock.
Marlon had a difficult time shaking the effects of the travel. We were to remain in the ward until every one passed a series of alertness tests. I didn't mind Marlon's delay. Lynette and I sat on a bed and looked out the window. We silently watched the afternoon pass into evening together.
Dinner was provided. It was the burgers that Ralph had missed. He told me to order mine rare, which I did. To my delight, it was very similar to the tartare. Lynette only picked at her food. "My stomach feels flip floppy."
"You're still catching up," insisted Dr. Karl. "Eat something. It will help."
Marlon only sat and looked at his plate, shaking his head every once in awhile. Ralph was worried about him. I could see it in his face. He kept prodding Marlon to eat, to try stretching, to count, to tell him his name.
After dinner, Christophe returned to get Reginald. They left the room and when they came back, Reginald was frowning. "Well, kids. Get comfy. Looks like we'll be here for the night."
"Thank god. I'm going back to sleep." Jillian got up from the bench she was sitting on and flopped back into her bed. In seconds she was back to sleep.