‘As you know, our scientists have been linking with yours over the past few months to research a wide range of issues. It seems that they work very well together – saurian knowledge and methodology combined with human inspiration and inventiveness. They have made a breakthrough which may be of interest; they have discovered the source of the energy transfer which occurs when a physical link is opened between our worlds, and have found a way to discharge this safely. They have just carried out the final tests, and will make an announcement soon. We can now open a portal through which people can pass. Would you like to visit us? We are ready for you now!’
“May be of interest”, indeed! I sent a brief but emphatic affirmative, turned to the computer and sent an email to Richards (gone travelling, may be away for a while) and walked eagerly outside, unable to sit still. I felt no doubts, nothing but an adrenaline rush of excitement. The saurian world! The prospect brought a huge wave of relief, making me realise how trapped I felt on this human Earth, how limited were my options. I had never dreamed that I could be offered such a way out.
Secundo told me that it would take a few minutes to set up, and to stay where I was on the beach while they made some adjustments, so I looked out over the sea, the waves tumbling beneath the shredded clouds speeding towards me. I smelt the salty air pressing against my body, and over the roar of the breakers I heard the harsh crying of the gulls as they balanced in the wind, hovering effortlessly. I realised that it was going to be my last experience of peaceful solitude for a long time. Then a strong feeling of electrical tension began to develop, triggering a powerful sense of déjà vu – if I had had any hairs on the back of my neck, they would have stood up. With a sudden loud hum, a circular opening appeared in front of me, another reality bizarrely hanging in the middle of the scene. A room was visible in the background. In the foreground stood my friends; Primo, Secundo and Tertia. The warmth of their greeting washed over me as I stepped forward and entered their world.
11
I staggered momentarily as a wave of nausea swept over me, then steadied and looked around. I was standing in what seemed to be a portable cabin, lined with machinery humming loudly with a frantic note which indicated high stress. Secundo made some adjustments to a control panel and the noise slowly wound down to nothing. I looked behind me and saw only machinery – the hole had disappeared. There was a moment of awkwardness when I turned back to face the saurians, none of us, I realised, being quite sure what to do next. We were all conscious that this was the very first meeting between a human and a saurian. They were a little shorter than humans, their heads up to my shoulder, but their small upper bodies contrasted with the power of their legs. Tertia broke the impasse by leaping forwards and flinging her arms around my neck. I laughed and hugged her, then broke away to shake hands warmly with Primo and Secundo. Their opposed thumbs felt strange, but their skin was the same as mine. We exchanged no coherent thoughts, just emotions of delight and welcome.
I felt the cabin move suddenly, and looked around in surprise. There were small windows to each side, and a skylight in the ceiling. I looked out of a window, and saw the ground receding. My little island looked basically the same, but there was no house, no jumble of stones at the peak, no sheep or visible animals of any kind, and the short turf was replaced by shrubs and occasional stunted trees. I stepped over to the skylight and looked up, and saw that the cabin was being winched up into a large dock at the bottom of a huge airship which loomed over us.
‘You’ve put the machine in an airship?’
‘It’s the most efficient way of carrying the slider machine: it means that we can open a connecting hole to a parallel world anywhere on the surface of the planet.’
‘Slider machine?’
‘Your scientists insisted on calling it that, we couldn’t quite understand why. It seems to have some mythological significance?’
I grinned, recalling the science-fiction series on television which had involved people moving between alternate worlds; evidently the scientists included a fan with a sense of humour. ‘You could say that.’
There was a muffled thump and the cabin came to a halt. Secundo opened a door at one end and we walked through, the saurians waddling rather awkwardly, into a tunnel made from some kind of synthetic material. This led to an open lobby, the sides sweeping upwards to follow the curve of the hull. A wide ramp led downwards and the saurians hopped effortlessly down it, moving with such speed that I was jogging to keep up. This led into what was clearly an observation deck; there was no furniture except for one human chair, just transparent walls all the way round. Tertia patted the chair as the saurians settled back on their legs and tails in what was obviously a comfortable rest position.
‘We made this for you. Humans seem to like sitting down.’
I thanked her and sat. The view was spectacular, completely unobstructed except for the floor and the ceiling. Sitting close to the front, I felt as if I was flying like a bird. The giant airship was eerily silent and I realised that I had seen no other living being.
‘How many crew does this ship have?’
‘Only about a dozen. Its operation is fully automated so it can be flown by one person. The others are there to keep it going for twenty-four hours a day, and to provide relief for the duty pilot.’
I looked back and saw big, slow-turning propellers.
‘What’s the power source?’
‘Most of our airships use hydrogen fuel, but the slider machine requires far more power that that system can provide. Our fusion plants are too big and heavy even for this airship to carry one, so this uses microwave energy, transmitted from a series of orbiting satellites to provide constant coverage.’
I felt my skin crawl a bit. ‘You mean we are being bombarded with high-energy microwaves?’
A mixture of mild shock and amusement from Primo. ‘Oh no, that would be far too dangerous. Come around here.’
He led me around the ramp to the back of the deck, which provided a clear view to the rear. The vast hull obscured most of the sky, but several hundred metres away I could see another huge airship, linked to ours by a loop of cable.
‘That has no crew, it is a drone remotely controlled by our ship’s computer. It contains a huge antenna to receive the microwave beam, which is very tightly focused onto it, and the necessary systems to turn this into electrical power, which is sent to us along the cable.’
‘Neat. But what if the beam from the satellite slips a bit?’
‘There is a feedback system – the airship transmits constantly to the satellite while it is receiving the microwaves, enabling the satellite to keep its beam focused on the centre of the antenna. If the microwave beam slips more than a couple of metres away from the centre of the antenna, the transmission stops and the beam is instantly shut off.’
‘Could be awkward if the power goes down while someone is stepping through the slider hole.’
A sense of tolerant amusement. ‘You are forgetting that we are not risk-takers. The drone ship has some electrical storage capacity plus emergency generators, as does our ship, and even the cabin with the slider machine has a few seconds of power stored on board so that a transfer through the hole can be completed.’