Empire Games Series, Book 1(63)

“I’m monitoring your vitals remotely,” Jose added. “In event of a pressure emergency the helmet will seal automatically; there’s a short-range voice channel over infrared: the transponder’s on top of your head.” Julie, already suited, raised a hand and tapped a protrusion on her helmet that Rita had taken for a headlight.

“What about Mission Control?” Rita asked.

“I am Mission Control. We requisitioned this stuff from NASA—space station spares and prototypes they never flew—but we don’t have their manpower. Or their budget.”

“But what”—Rita turned to face Julie—“do you need me for?”

Julie waved her forward, toward a rectangular metal door at the far end of the robing room. “Jose? You don’t need to hear this.”

“Gotcha. I’ll be in the office; page me if you need me.” He ducked out.

“This way,” Julie said.

“You haven’t said why.” Rita stood her ground, stubborn.

“The Colonel told me to give you the dog and pony show.” Julie momentarily looked mulish. “If you want to know what this is really about, you’ll have to ask Colonel Smith: I’m mostly just a researcher here.” She looked around warily. Rita couldn’t be sure—the humming aircon and the muffling effects of her helmet liner messed with her hearing—but Julie seemed tense. Almost as if she was afraid of being listened in on.

“I’m not arguing, but—” Rita stopped. “You’ve got a script, you’ve got a dog and pony show to give me, I get that, but do we need to do this drip-drip thing? Why couldn’t you show me the video or something instead of dragging me out here?”

“Because the Colonel wants you to see it with your own eyes,” Julie said snippily. “You wouldn’t believe us if we just showed you a video. This stuff’s real. It’s also so crazy that most people go straight into denial unless they see it for themselves.” She took a deep breath. “If I had to make a guess—this is just a guess, you with me? I don’t know that this is what’s happening—I’d guess that he’s worried about your commitment. But you’re not stupid or crazy, so he’s giving you enough of the background to make up your own mind.”

She pointed at the door. “On the other side of that airlock there’s a walkway into the Gate. It’s a gate into another time line. One where there’s no Earth. We built a receiving area and laboratory on the far side, but there’s a risk of micrometeoroid impacts, hence the suits. Part of the dog and pony show is that the Colonel wants you to use your magic JAUNT BLUE thing to log your knotspace location before you step through the Gate, and again on the other side. You’re not to try and jaunt there, you understand—you’d die, with or without a space suit. But he wants to see if you can log it, and if it agrees with readings we’ve taken using other devices.”

Her heart pounded. “But why? I mean, couldn’t they just map the knotspace location anyway?”

“He wants you to do it. So that you get to see what’s on the other side of it.”

“But what’s so hazardous? Apart from vacuum?”

“There’s no there there. The lab is anchored to the Gate and there’s gravity, but there’s no surface, just a point mass several thousand miles down. Because on this side the Gate is sitting on the surface of the Earth, the far side is being carried around the point mass at a few hundred miles per hour as the Earth rotates. That’s well below orbital velocity, so if you jaunted through to that time line you’d fall below ground level really fast. Best case, if you didn’t fall right into the center, is that you’d eventually drift up: in which event, if you jaunted back at exactly the right moment and had a parachute, you might survive. But if you drifted too far down, or got too close to the center—”

“Yeah, I get it.” Rita’s mouth was dry. “So the Gate’s in two time lines at once, isn’t it?”

“Yes. That’s why it’s a gate.” Julie pulled the heavy airlock door open and walked inside. A red line painted along the floor of the room continued up the far wall, bisecting the door opposite. “Come on in. I’ve done this dozens of times—it’s routine as long as you don’t screw up.”

“Okay. Just a minute.” Rita paused on the threshold and squeezed her left forearm, hoping she’d remembered the multitouch gesture correctly and that it would register through the padding of her skinsuit. Then she followed Julie into the chamber. “I’m ready now.”

“Don’t let the airlock hit you on the ass.” Julie pulled the door closed and dogged it. “Hold the handrail and follow me.” Demonstrating, she walked across the red line. “Come on, nothing to it.”

Rita followed her. A faint wave of nausea gripped her stomach as she stepped over the red line, but it had to be her imagination. There was no way her inner ear could register her sudden departure from the universe of light and air and gravity, was there?

“That was the Gate. Easy, wasn’t it?” said Julie. She paused before the opposite airlock hatch. “Pressure’s equal. I’m opening up.” She rotated a handwheel and pulled the door open. “Come on inside.” Julie left the airlock; Rita followed, marveling. She’d seen the old movies 2001 and Apollo 13: Okay, so now I’ve fallen into a sci-fi flick she thought dizzily. It was a giant leap too far: all disbelief faded, burned out like an overloaded fuse. They were in a dimly lit corridor, lined with velcro pads and cable ducts, with drawers on all four walls. A docking node at the far end contained sealed hatches to either side. Inset in the floor, a cluster of windows like the nose of a Second World War bomber opened onto starry darkness. “That’s the cupola,” Julie told her. “It’s a duplicate of the one on the international space station.” Rita drifted toward it, fascinated.