I rolled into bed sometime later. It felt like hours and hours. It may have just been a few minutes. I was so exhausted I slept right through dinner and would have slept through breakfast the next morning if Ralph didn't team up with Lena and force me to wake up, sit up, and eat.
"Why am I so tired?"
"Gravity. Even when you're not walking, it's working on every part of you. Every muscle, every breath, every heart beat is working double time to adjust. It's why no one is allowed to be born in a low gravity situation..." He shoved the plate at me. "And why you've got to work twice as hard to prove them wrong."
Now, I had never heard anyone bash StarTech. I'd never heard any of the crew or my folks speak badly about them. Why should they? They funded the mission, made my parents' dream a reality. But sometimes I got the feeling that there was an anger there, something none of them dared to say out loud. When Ralph urged me on, it was like that. There was something there. So I ate. And then I walked. And then I worked until I thought I would break and spent an hour having all of my vitals checked before I was blessedly allowed to collapse back into bed and do it all again after a rest.
Time passed in a blur. It was like that for weeks on end. Slowly, I began to walk more and use the walker less. Slowly I began to lift heavier bars for longer. Slowly I began to breathe without noticing the effort it took. It was working. It was paying off. And the stronger I got, the clearer things became for me. I could have a thought without falling asleep in the middle of it. I could talk with Lena while I walked down the hall, instead of huffing and puffing the whole way. And I could miss people.
That's the thing about "feeling better". Once you start, everything else that took a back seat in your mind comes rushing forward. As I worked out, I started wondering what Dad was up to. As I ate, I thought of Daniel's cooking and how Dad was right and it really was terrible. As I showered I thought about Stephan going on and on about his life support systems and how inadequate they were. I even missed Mother, even if she called me Jakey.
But it was at night that was the worst. In the dark with Ralph snoring and the nurses station closed, it was safe to miss my friends. Little Blob. I tried to inspeak. He had told me once that no amount of miles could really get in the way of inspeaking, and, true to his word, I had kept in touch the entire time we were around Laak'sa. Try as I might, I couldn't find him. Maybe it wasn't something that could happen across galaxies. Maybe the wormhole blocked it. I wished I could find someone here who knew about inspeaking. If only someone could have told me how, I wouldn't have been so lonely.
And then, of course, I'd think of Ashnahta.
Late one night a bot alerted Lena that I was out of my bed. I didn't know she was "on call". If I had, I wouldn't have bothered her. Apparently the bots were set to notify the nurse on call if a patient was out of bed for more than half an hour. Lena explained it's a safety measure. She scared the crap out of me when she came bursting in. The light from the hallway flooded in and she scanned the room. I was sitting by the window. No plasma displays here, not on Utopia. Foot thick glass that distorted the night sky, made it slightly wavy. I was looking off to where Ralph said the wormhole was. As silly as it sounds, I had a thought that maybe if I could see the connection...
I said it was a silly thought. I know darn well you can't actually see a wormhole. I was tired and lonely. Cut me some slack.
"Jake," she whispered. I had long since insisted she stop calling me Mr. Cosworth. "Is something wrong? Are you feeling ill?"
She crossed the room and sat on the bench next to me.
"No. I'm fine. I thought you were all gone home."
"I'm on call." She took out a thermometer and stuck it in my ear anyway.
"I'm fine," I said, pulling it out.
"I've been called and this is for the record." I sighed and let her use it. I pulled up my shirt and let her place the vital check on my chest. In a few seconds it beeped and she pressed the enter button to solidify my vitals into the records forever. "You're just fine."
"I told you."
"Can't sleep?"
I shook my head.
"Thinking about home?"
I nodded, feeling a lump in my throat.
"I miss home too, sometimes." I didn't know how old she was. An adult. Maybe thirty, if that.
"Where's your home?"
She gave a small laugh. "Where everyone's is, silly. Earth." She looked at me then, and quirked an eyebrow. "Okay, Mr. Spaceman. Everyone but you."
"How long does it take to get to Earth from here?"
"Three weeks, if you're Class B."
"Class B?"
She nodded. "Yes. Working class. It's a commuter system. I'm Class B."
"How many classes are there?"
"Seven. A through G."
"Is A the highest?"
"No, silly! I'm not that close to the top. G, that's the highest."
"How long does a transport take for them?"
"Less than a day."
My eyes went wide. "Why can't you do it in that time then?"
"I'm not allowed."
I couldn't wrap my head around it. "But if it's possible for some, why can't everyone?"
"Well, first, there's no reason I need to be back on Earth that quickly. Then there's the cost."
"Cost?"
"Yes. It's very expensive to travel that quickly."
I had to laugh. I just couldn't help it. "But a fah'ti is free!"
Lena frowned. "What's a fah'ti?"
I could only sit there in disbelief. I may not get the specifics of space and time, but I do know that as soon as Mother decoded the information, she sent fah'ti plans back to Earth. Of course they didn't have the materials yet, those would be sent later after the deal with the Qitan. But Mother had been saying for years that StarTech was teaching about all of her findings, getting ready to advance the race, preparing for wide scale space travel. Maybe Lena didn't know about them because she was just a nurse. Maybe it was simply outside her scope of learning.
"Fah'ti's are Qitan technology that allows for independent wormhole jumping." It felt like a wall fell between us, her confusion was so complete. "You know. Qitani." She shook her head, and I frowned. "You've never heard of the Qitani of Laak'sa?"
"Of where?" She turned slightly, and even though she was confused, she seemed very interested.
"But...it's been years. Decades and decades here." Surely they would at least be teaching about the tribes we found. "You didn't learn about them in school?"
Lena glanced to the door, then to snoring Ralph. "Look, Jake. It's clear that there are things you don't yet understand about your new world."
"It's not my world."
She waved it off completely as if it was a trivial matter. "We've colonized Luna. We've colonized Mars, here in Utopia. StarTech just announced last year that they've set their sights on travel outside the solar system, and it's really caused a stir."
"But my folks and the team..."
"Are legends," she said quickly in a soothing voice. "They are absolute legends of hope, and that's it. I see you here. I see Mr. Buttrick, even though I can hardly believe it."
"It's the truth," I said firmly.
"I know. I get it. I've see the both of you...that kind of muscle atrophy can only be a symptom of years and years in low gravity, and since you're only a kid, that can really only mean one thing. The rumors, the whispers...they're correct." She held her hands up. "I'm trying here, kid. I'm really trying to put myself in your shoes and help you understand some things because I highly doubt anyone at S.T. is going to take that kind of time. But you have to understand a few key things. I might lose my job for this, but I like you. I think you should know.