:
eep Breath:: Okay, here goes. This is the first story I've ever actually written, and I'm looking for some feedback as to what I do well and what I don't so I can improve this an my next one. It's called Crossing space and is about 7500 words. So, any suggestions?
University of Saturn
Saturn One Space Station
The Year 2241
Emily was really not a fan Mechanical Engineering Design class. Well, that wasn’t entirely true. What she wasn’t a fan of was Professor Schuster. Under another professor the class might have been vaguely interesting. But, no. Not only was Schuster one of the most annoying people she’d ever met (His bushy eyebrows twitched constantly and very distractingly), but he never had them design anything interesting. All he ever had them work on were little pieces of his precious Mini-Turbo Racer, which was supposed to be an extracurricular activity, not the main focus of design class. Either that or absurdly simple projects like projectile launchers, as if they were still living in the 20th century or something. No one used projectile anything anymore, and designing a launcher was frankly a waste of her time, when she could be working on the wormhole research project of which she was an integral part.
Her eyes wandered vaguely over the other students; each one looked as bored as she felt. She tuned out Professor Schuster and wondered yet again why she had decided to major in engineering. Not that she wasn’t good at it. Emily was good at everything. She was labeled gifted at age four when her parents noticed that she’d taught herself to read just by following along as the read stories to her. She skipped first, sixth, and ninth grade and was now the top student in the Senior Class at the University of Saturn at the age of nineteen.
No, it wasn’t that Emily wasn’t good at engineering; she just didn’t like it all that much. Well, she liked the Astronautical focus of her Astronautical/Mechanical Engineering degree—especially the wormhole research project—but the rest was rather boring.
Most people thought she was crazy for double majoring in two types of Engineering, but she’d learned early on in life that she was odd. Most people were good at either one or two things. But she’d always been good at everything. In fact, she’d gotten same score on both the math and verb sections of the college entrance exam, and a very high score it was. She was the only person she knew to have done that.
Not that she really knew all that many people. Being labeled gifted had a number of drawbacks. People resented her age and intelligence and tended to steer clear of her unless they needed help with homework. Which was fine with her. She wasn’t a big fan of people anyway. She was perfectly content now in the small world she had created for herself on Saturn One, which consisted of her best friend, Alex, her sister, Lauren, and her advisor, Dr. Grant. The four of them spent quite a lot of their free time together.
She was startled from her reverie by Alex throwing a wadded gum wrapper at the back of her head. She whipped around and glared at him. He nodded toward Professor Schuster, and she realized Schuster had just asked her a question.
“Oh, uh, sorry Professor. My brain seems to have stepped out for a moment. What was the question?” The class chuckled appreciatively at her sarcasm as always. Shuster only twitched his twitchy eyebrows and looked disapproving.
“We were discussing the steering on last year’s Mini-Turbo Racer, Ms. Elliot. It’s somewhat lacking. Any suggestions for improvements?” he asked. Clearly, he was challenging her for not paying attention.
Well, whatever, she thought. She glanced quickly over the drawings on the screen and decided to fall back on her motto: when in doubt, make something up (Most people tended to think she wasn’t just making stuff up, but she really was. She couldn’t help it if people thought the crap that spewed out her mouth was good. She had never understood why people didn’t recognize her talent for bullshit for just that—bullshit.)
“Well, Professor. The directional thrusters are installed too close to the center of gravity requiring too much power to affect suitable attitude changes in the artificial gravity field. They should be moved outward. Also, while the aluminum alloy that was used for the body is strong and comparatively cheap, this is the 23rd century and a carbon fiber composite would be much stronger and lighter, requiring even less power and allowing more weight allowance for improvements to the thruster system.” She really didn’t have much idea what she was rambling on about—all of this should have been obvious to anyone who looked at the racer—but the rest of the class looked impressed. Schuster only looked more annoyed as he glanced at his watch.
“Okay, that’s it for today. Don’t forget your proposals for your projectile launchers are due next class.” As everyone headed for the door, Schuster added, “Ms. Elliot, a word please.”
She just managed not to roll her eyes as she glanced at Alex who nodded toward the door to indicate he’d be waiting outside. Warily, she approached Schuster.
“Yes, Professor?”
Schuster held up a hand and waited until everyone had left. “Ms. Elliot, your ideas for the Racer were quite impressive, especially since you weren’t paying any attention to the lecture.” His eyebrows twitched, and she had to look away to keep her own eyebrows from twitching along with his. “You’re an extremely intelligent person, and if you applied even half of your talent to your designs, there’s no telling what you might do. Frankly, I don’t know why you’re here instead of back on Earth at MIT or Cambridge.”
She tried to keep her expression politely interested as he went on about how she wasn’t living up to her potential. It didn’t matter that she was top of her senior class at age nineteen, or that she never got less than an A on anything, or that she took more classes in more diverse subjects than anyone else, or that she was one of only two students allowed to work on the wormhole project. No, still professors thought she should do more because she’d been labeled gifted. And she was at SU because she wanted to be on Saturn One where her sister taught English at the station middle school. And, besides, she’d grown up in America and on the America Space Station, and had wanted to see more of the Solar System. But, she’d learned years ago that these arguments meant little to Professors. They always thought she should do more.
Suddenly, Emily realized Schuster had finished his tirade. “Thanks, Professor,” she told him. “I’ll keep your advice in mind. If you’ll excuse me, I have another class to go to. You know, not much free time with the twenty-two credits I’m taking.” Not entirely true since her next class wasn’t for an hour, but Schuster didn’t know that.
“You may go,” he replied, ignoring her sarcasm. “By the way, Professor Grant would like to talk to both Mr. Crawford and yourself. He said he’d be in his office most of the day.”
Emily brightened at this. Grant was her favorite professor, and the only one that didn’t constantly harp on about potential. “Great, thanks Professor,” she said as she grabbed her things and headed for the door.
------
Alex Crawford, tall with broad shoulders, disheveled chestnut colored hair, and deep brown eyes, was just starting to worry that maybe Emily had gotten herself into an argument with Schuster (After all, holding her tongue was not exactly one of her many talents), when she finally came out of the classroom and started down the hall toward him. He thought she looked vaguely annoyed but not too upset. You couldn’t always tell with Emily though. She’d learned to hide most of her emotions too well, a product of the gifted label Alex understood all too well. When people constantly bothered you to do better, achieve more—whether or not you wanted to achieve in any particular area—you either learned to hide your emotions and ignore them, or you exploded. Alex and Emily had done the former for the most part, though Emily did have a propensity to lose her temper and allow her tongue to take over when adults annoyed her.
Alex did a mental shrug and ran a hand through his hair. After all, the label was what had made them such fast friends. Though Alex was from London, he’d decided to go to university on Saturn One in an attempt to escape the label he’d come to resent so much. He’d met Emily the first day of Calculus III. They were the only two freshmen in the class, and they were both young, even for freshmen. Alex had skipped a few years of school as well and was just a year older than Emily. They’d been nearly inseparable since.
Alex had since come to terms with the label. He did get better classes out of it, after all, and wasn’t so bored because of it. And how could anything that had brought him to Emily be that bad?
Alex watched her walk down the hall. Emily was completely preoccupied with stuffing her books and laptop in her bag as she walked and hadn’t even noticed him yet. Tall and athletically slender, with shinning blonde hair and bright green eyes, Emily was always a sight to behold, even when walking down a fluorescently lit, space station hallway. The fact that she was completely unaware of how beautiful she was only made her more attractive. Now that she was a bit closer, he thought she might be a little excited about something, but he still wasn’t sure.
In fact, there were only three things about Emily of which he was ever absolutely sure: One, she was the smartest person he’d ever met. Not just book smart either. Her childhood as a military brat with a space-fighter pilot as a father had given her a streak of confidence and common sense that he’d never seen in anyone else. She was unerringly logical and yet also had a very open mind for new ideas and solutions.
Two, she was infinitely loyal to her family and the few people she allowed to get close enough to be her friends, including himself and Dr. Grant.
And three, he was in love with her, though he didn’t think he’d ever have the courage to tell her. He knew she liked him as a friend, but he couldn’t imagine her ever feeling more for him than just friendship.
Emily finally looked up and noticed Alex waiting. He smiled and stood up. “What did Schuster want?”
She looked up at him (at well over six feet tall he was quite a bit taller than her five feet eight inches), rolled her eyes, and answered, “To give me the potential speech.”
Alex rolled his eyes in return. “I’m sure that was a laugh. Did he give you the bit about not trying your best being a disservice to yourself?”
“I don’t know. I stopped listening after the part where he wondered why I was at SU and not MIT. Anyway, he says Grant wants to see us in his office,” she told him, grinning.
Alex grinned, “Do you think he figured it out?”
“I don’t know,” she said, grabbing his hand and dragging him toward the lift. “But let’s blow off Manufacturing and go find out.”
-------
For the past three years (ever since taking his course in Introductory Astrophysics), Emily and Alex had been assisting Dr. David Grant, professor of Astrophysics and Astronautical Engineering, with his research into wormhole theory. In the beginning, they had just run computations, made suggestions for changes to computer codes, assembled machinery, and did pretty much whatever else Dr. Grant asked of them. Now they were Grant’s closest confidants and assistants both on and off the project.
Wormhole research had become one of the leading fields in Astrophysics in the last fifty years due to the need for faster travel between outposts and for the purpose of further exploration of the galaxy. It was now a race to see which researchers would find the answer first, and Emily and Alex were thrilled to be a part of it, especially since they were just undergraduates.
The light barrier had been broken more than a century before. However, since then, faster than light travel using anti-matter propulsion had only advanced enough to allow ships to travel at about twice the speed of light. This meant that it still took more than two years to reach even the closest star to the Sun, four point two light years away. Wormholes allowed nearly instantaneous travel between any two points in space—if only someone could figure out how to stabilize one large enough for human travel.
Dr. Grant, Emily, and Alex were getting close. In the past twenty years, it had become relatively routine to manufacture and manipulate useful amounts of exotic matter, or matter with a negative energy density, in the outposts of the outer Solar System. Now, the focus was on stabilizing the exotic matter to produce the interface in the wormhole long enough and at a sufficient size to allow for humans to pass through it.
Dr. Grant believed that by streaming exotic matter through a focusing device powered by anti-matter he would be able to produce a suitable one. Once the travelers had passed, the wormhole would then be allowed to collapse, and could be reopened using a remote ansible connection carried with the travelers that allowed for instantaneous communication with the wormhole base.
At least, that was the theory. But while actual wormholes had been produced and small objects had passed safely through them and been brought back by ansible control, a sufficiently large and stable wormhole for humans could not be produced. The first person to produce a wormhole that would allow for human travel would go down in history as the founder of modern space travel.
After a half hour shuttle flight to the University’s remote lab orbiting Titan, Saturn’s largest moon, Alex and Emily were outside Dr. Grant’s office door. A note had been attached to it. It read, “Emily and Alex, I’m in the lab. Come find me ASAP!”
“Guess he couldn’t wait for us to get started,” Alex said.
“Apparently not. Maybe he really found something,” Emily replied as she set off down the hall.
Dr. Grant’s lab was one of several on the remote station, put there to prevent the main station orbiting Saturn from being destroyed if any of the exotic or antimatter technology should malfunction. The lab itself was separated into two parts. A massive space filled from top to bottom with computers and various machines in several states of assembly all running various programs, and making a good bit of noise doing it, made up the main portion. A separate anteroom contained the displays and controls with which the other room was run. It had taken Dr. Grant two years to convince the University that his research in wormhole technology was on the right path and that it required a lab with its own anti-matter accelerator, exotic matter manufacturer, seven of the latest super computers, and it’s own artificial gravity control field. Now he was on the verge of proving that the money he’d been granted was worth it.
Emily and Alex entered the anteroom to find Grant hunched over a terminal staring avidly at the display. David Grant was of medium height and build, with sandy blonde hair sticking out in various directions and hazel eyes rimmed in green. His preferred style of dress consisted of denim jeans, vibrantly patterned shirts, and Velcro sandals he had sent from the Hawaiian Islands back on Earth. Next to Emily and Alex, in their synthetic cotton trousers, solid color sweaters, and slip-on Nike station boots that were the general fashion of station-dwellers, he looked like something out of the 20th Century vids he was so fond of watching. Without looking up, Grant said, “Come in. I think I’ve found the right combination. The simulation is nearly finished running.”
“Good afternoon to you too, Professor,” Emily replied as she went to stand behind him to see the display. Alex chuckled; Grant ignored her.
“I altered the dimensions of the exotic cube interface, decreasing it by three percent. It’ll be tight, but it should be enough to allow the shuttle through, just barely.” His eyes were fixed on the screen as row after row of numbers and equations flashed across it. “I think the error was in the ratio of the power input from the antimatter to the exotic matter injector. By decreasing the cube size, we decrease the amount of exotic matter needed so that it takes less power to control. If I’m right, we just need to find the right ratio of exotic matter to power input. It’s just a matter of iterations.”
“But what made you think it was the ratio that mattered?” Alex asked.
“I’ve been here since three this morning. I woke up thinking that this whole time we’ve been focusing on the injector mechanism and the shape of the exotic matter interface. And we’ve finally gotten the cubic interface we wanted, right?” Grant paused and waited for one of them to respond. It was his standard technique—make the student figure it out.
“Right,” Alex replied. “But we haven’t been able to maintain the interface. You think it’s because we haven’t been feeding the right amount of power to the focusing device?”
Emily considered this and, with a few quick mental calculations, decided that it just might work. “Yeah, I think your right, Professor. Too much power and we lose control of the cube, too little and the cube never forms.” They had been searching for the right combination of factors for weeks, ever since they’d finally produced the cubic interface with their new design for the focusing device. This interface was ideal because it produced specific plane barriers through which the shuttle could pass and allowed that plane to be opened to a specific area whereas a curved interface would have a factor of error as to where the shuttle emerged on the other side.
They had finally decided on a design for the machine to generate the wormholes, but introducing the right factors had proved more difficult. In order to open a specific wormhole to a specific location in space, it required a focusing mechanism that was capable of manipulating the exotic matter and placing it in the right shape and configuration. So far, their attempts had resulted in wormholes large enough, but not stable enough to remain open a sufficient amount of time for the shuttle to pass.
It wasn’t good enough to produce a wormhole that was large enough for a single person to pass. That would simply leave the person floating in space on the other side. A shuttle with at least several people and enough supplies to make an exploration mission possible had to be able to pass.
They had thought that maybe it was the amount of exotic matter that was causing the problem and had been increasing the matter in small steps. But, maybe it wasn’t the amount of matter that mattered. But controlling it with the right amount of power. It was worth a shot.
The numbers on the screen slowed and stopped. The final output read, “Wormhole stabilized for .016 seconds.”
“Damn!” Grant pushed himself away from the screen. “That isn’t long enough. This is my seventh iteration today. How many more is it going to take?”
He didn’t really want an answer, Emily knew. He was just frustrated because, after seven years of his work, they were so close. So instead she just sat down at another monitor and called up the results of the simulations. Alex did the same at another station. “It’s longer than anything we’ve gotten yet so you must be on the right track. What changes did you make to the code?” Alex asked.
“On the last iteration, I reduced the size of the cube by three percent and the amount of exotic matter two percent. Then increased the power by point five percent.”
For the next three hours, each of them went through the massive computer code and results line by line, not speaking, looking for anything they might have missed in the last attempt. Finally, Emily realized the error was staring them right in the face. “Look! In line seventy-eight. That’s the equation that controls the power input from the antimatter, right? But, Professor, you said you thought it was the ratio of the power input to the amount of exotic matter that controlled the stability of the wormhole.”
“That’s right,” Alex said, seeing where she was going. “But we haven’t linked the equation that controls the exotic matter injection to the power input equation.”
“Exactly,” Emily continued. “That equation is in line one hundred twenty. There is no ratio as far as the computer is concerned. It only sees the two separate equations. But, if we add another equation that equates the ratio of power input and the exotic matter injected to the time that the wormhole remains stable—“
“—Then we can set the time to anything we’d like, which in turn would control the equations seventy-eight and one hundred twenty allowing us to control the wormhole indefinitely,” Grant finished. “Provided we have enough exotic matter and antimatter, that is.”
Emily smiled at him and began typing furiously. “How many times have I told you not to work computer codes until after breakfast, Professor?”
“That’s why I keep you two around,” Grant stood behind Emily to watch her make changes to the code. “You’re much better programmers than I am. Make the changes Emily, and set the time to seven seconds. That will give the shuttle a good window to pass through. We don’t need to sustain it any longer than that.”
Within fifteen minutes, Emily had made the changes and the code was compiling and running again. Suddenly, Emily remembered something and glanced at her chronometer. It was six-forty. “Oh, no.” She leapt from her chair and pulled her comlink from her pocket, switching it on. While she dialed her sister’s number, she said, “I was meant to be having dinner with my sister forty minutes ago. If I can get a hold of her, do you guys want to come? I’m sure she wouldn’t mind professor.”
“Well, I don’t know—“
“Come on, Dr. Grant. Have you even had anything to eat today?” Alex prodded, knowing full well that he probably hadn’t.
“I had some coffee and muffins.” Dr. Grant replied, attempting to sound indignant.
“Hardly sustenance. You should—“
Just then, the door to the anteroom slid opened, and Emily’s sister Lauren came in. “When you didn’t answer your comlink, I figured you were here.” She smiled at the three of them standing around Emily’s monitor. “You three are oblivious to the galaxy when you’re working on this. I brought you all some dinner.”
“Hey, thanks, Lauren. I’m so sorry. I totally lost track of time. We’re really getting close on this stuff.”
“No problem. Hi Alex, David.” Lauren nodded at the two men who both grinned at her—Alex in friendship and Dr. Grant in something close to embarrassment. “I’ve got chicken teriyaki stir fry with rice and spring rolls. Shall we set up a picnic?”
Grant nodded wordlessly and went to a nearby cabinet to pull out some paper plates, glasses, and plastic silverware that they kept there for just such occasions—they ate in the lab rather frequently. As they sank to the floor and helped Lauren unpack the food, Emily caught Alex’s eye and glanced meaningfully at Grant. Alex hid a grin behind his hand. It invariably took Grant at least five minutes to get over his shyness whenever Lauren entered a room, despite the inordinate amount of time the four of them spent together. Quite an odd response for the usually boisterous professor. Joining them on the floor, Grant smiled again at Lauren, “Thank you very much for dinner, Ms. Logan.”
“Oh, it’s my pleasure. And please, I’ve asked you before to call me Lauren,” she replied, smiling sweetly as she passed the food around.
Emily and Lauren exchanged anecdotes about their days with Alex, who had almost the same schedule as Emily, adding a few comments here and there. Grant relaxed slowly and began to laugh at Lauren’s story of how one of her students threatened to go on strike if she didn’t quit calling on him when he didn’t have his hand up. Finally, as the last of the spring rolls was consumed, Lauren asked Grant, “So, are you really getting close on this stuff? Emily tries to explain it to me, but I really don’t get it…English brained I guess.”
“Oh, not at all,” Grant assured her. “Most people even in astrophysics or astronautical engineering don’t understand it very well. Emily and Alex, as I’m sure you know, are exceptional—”
“Hopefully, this will be the last iteration,” Alex broke in, since Grant seemed to have forgotten what he was talking about when Lauren smiled at his complement of her sister. “Dr. Grant realized that we weren’t looking at the right ratio and Emily discovered an error in the code today. So, now the code is running again.”
Alex had to admit that Lauren was every bit as attractive as her sister, though her hair was a mass of shinning auburn curls instead of smooth golden blonde. He understood Grant’s attraction.
“Sounds exciting,” Lauren said. “You two and this project are all Emily talks about lately. She practically breathes it. I don’t even think she’s been running on the recreation deck this week, she’s spent so much time here, and she usually does that every day.”
“Thanks Lauren,” Emily sardonically replied. “I am a geek after all. What do you expect?”
But Lauren didn’t get a chance to reply. One of the monitor stations behind Emily beeped, and Emily, Alex, and Grant all leapt to their feet to see what it said. The monitor read, “Wormhole stabilized for 7.0 seconds.”
They all stared, transfixed, at the screen for several seconds. Then, Emily whispered, “Oh my God, we did it.”
Lauren came up behind them to look at the screen. “Wait, you did it? You mean you figured it out?”
“We did it!” Emily yelled and began jumping up and down. She turned to the others and saw them still staring at the output. “Alex, Dr. Grant, we did it!”
Suddenly, Alex’s astonished face broke into a wide grinned, and he swept Emily into a crushing embrace, twirling her across the room. “The code worked! It actually worked!” Alex released her but kept hold of her hands. Starring down into her depthless green eyes, Alex nearly gave in to an impulse to kiss Emily before she broke away from his gaze and turned back to Grant who had also begun exclaiming excitedly as he scrolled quickly through the entirety of the results.
“Alex, Emily, we really did it. The power input and exotic matter needed to stabilize the wormhole for seven seconds is well within range of what we can generate.” He turned to them with a broad grin on his not unhandsome face. “I’m going first thing in the morning station ops to get a permit to test it.”
“Congratulations, David.” Lauren grinned earnestly into his eyes. “That’s wonderful! Does that mean I’m standing in the presence of the founders of modern space travel?”
Grant’s face turned crimson as he glanced away from her eyes. “Well, um, no. I mean we still have to test it. We only just finished building the prototype exotic matter injector. We’ll have to run scores of trials and then there are certifications and approvals to be obtained,” Grant rambled.
“She’s joking, Dr. Grant,” Emily informed him, amused. “Just ignore her. She knows perfectly well it’ll be quite some time before any humans go through a wormhole.” Grant, however, seemed quite unable to recover himself after Lauren’s smile and so began printing out the results to take to ops in the morning. Emily smiled at Alex, her eyes still sparkling in triumph, before grabbing her sister’s hand and dragging her toward the door to the inner chamber of the lab. “Come on, Lauren. Let me show you the injector.”
When the door had closed behind them, Emily turned to her sister and demanded, “Why do have to tease Dr. Grant so much. You know he has a crush on you.”
“Oh please,” Lauren replied, amused. “Like you don’t tease Alex as much.”
“Alex is my friend. He doesn’t have a crush on me.” Lauren noted that Emily almost sounded regretful, though Lauren knew that she was the only person in the world around which Emily would have allowed regret at such a statement seep into her voice. Emily never discussed anything remotely personal with anyone but Lauren.
“Emily, Alex is hopelessly in love with you and has been for quite some time. I really don’t know how you can miss it with the way he looks at you. Didn’t you notice the way he was spinning you about the room just now?”
Emily couldn’t help but remember the way it had felt to have Alex’s arms hold her so tight while they spun. Her pulse had leapt at his touch, and his arms about her had felt warm and safe. She wished Lauren were right, but she didn’t actually believe it.
So she replied, bemused, “Oh please. That was just because he was excited about the code. If he’s so in love with me, why hasn’t he done something about it? We only spend nearly every waking minute together. He ought to know he’s the only man I wouldn’t mind doing something about it.”
“Because he’s afraid of you rejecting him. The same way that David is afraid of me—Though I must say that, at thirty-five, David ought to be able to get past that. Alex I understand. He’s only twenty years old, but David?”
“Oh, God. Let’s just drop it okay? I really did want to show you the injector since you’re here. We finished it a few days ago. It’s really something.”
--- --- ---
Alex had calmed down a bit from the initial shock of actually having their code run without errors and give them the result they wanted. Now, he couldn’t help wondering at how close he’d come to actually kissing Emily. Through the glass, Alex watched Emily point out the different aspects of the exotic matter injector, showing Lauren how the injector sent the matter through their focusing device and out into space. Grant looked up from his monitor and noticed where Alex was looking. Smiling, he inquired, “So, have you told Emily how you feel about her yet?”
Shocked at his directness, Alex asked, “Excuse me, Professor?”
“Alex,” Grant chided. “You’ve been in love with Emily since before I met you three years ago. When are you going to tell her that?”
Alex busied himself by picking up the leftovers of their dinner off the floor. He thought briefly about denying it, but decided it wasn’t worth it. “Well, three years ago, we were a little young. And now, I know she can’t possibly feel the same way, and I don’t want to ruin our friendship,” he mumbled miserably.
“Is that what you really think?” Grant asked. “Alex, Emily adores you.”
“As a friend.”
“Well, you’ll never know if it’s more than that unless you tell her how you feel,” Grant admonished.
Becoming annoyed, with himself for being afraid as much as with Grant for calling him on it, Alex stood up and glared at Grant. “Really, Professor? Well, perhaps you should take your own advice and have a chat with Lauren.”
Now it was Grant’s turn to be shocked. “I beg your pardon?”
“Don’t even try to deny it, Professor. Every time you see Lauren you turn into the picture of bumbling professor when Emily and I know you’re anything but. The only time I’ve ever seen you embarrassed is when Lauren pays you a compliment, which is saying something since you’re the only man in the outer solar system that walks about in flowered shirts. At least I can talk to Emily without making a fool of myself.”
“Now just a minute—“ Grant began, rising from his seat. Alex, seeing Grants anger, realized he’d gone a bit far and cut him off.
“I apologize, Professor. That was out of line. I only meant that Lauren has been crazy about you for months now, and you haven’t done anything about it, either. Why do you think she brings us dinner down here so often? This is, what, the fourth time in the last week? She does it to see you, not Emily. So, how about you take your own advice instead of foisting it off on me. Emily and I are doing just fine.”
Grant blinked, and then gave Alex a sardonic smile. “Nice speech.”
“Thank you.”
“We make quite a pair don’t we?” Grant asked, turning to watch Lauren and Emily walk back toward them. “Each in love with a sister and to terrified to do anything about it.”
“Yes, well. The Logan sisters can be somewhat intimidating.” Alex said quietly as the door from the inner lab opened, and Emily and Lauren re-entered the room.
--- --- ---
They all returned to the main station and parted ways to their various residences shortly after that. In the morning, Grant obtained an experiment permit from station ops, while Alex and Emily fired up the exotic and anti-matter generators for their experiment later that day. They had no classes to attend as it was Saturday.
Emily couldn’t stop thinking about what Lauren had said the night before and found herself staring periodically at Alex while they waited for Grant and ran checks on all of their equipment. She’d felt more than just friendship for him for quite some time but hadn’t thought he returned her feelings. Was it possible she was wrong?
Alex had caught Emily staring at him several times, which caused her to look away rapidly and busy herself at her monitor. What had gotten into her today? he wondered. She was being abnormally quiet. So, he asked, “Emily, is something wrong?”
“Oh, no. Not at all. Why?” She was typing furiously and refusing to meet his eyes.
“Well, because—“ He didn’t have time to finish his sentence though as Grant entered the lab, and they started running the experiment in earnest.
Just to be safe, they ran all of their checks again. And then again. After all, they were dealing with a massive amount of energy in two very unstable forms of matter. If something went wrong, they could easily wipe out the entire lab station, which had been cleared of everyone but them for the experiment.
Finally, grant switched on the injector and entered the initiation command into the computer. “Ready?” he asked. Alex and Emily nodded silently, and Grant pushed the enter key.
The machinery in the other room roared to life. They held their breaths as they stared through the glass into the other room. The focusing device was made up of eight injectors of exotic matter, powered by anti-matter, that streamed the exotic matter into a single point and then began to expand out into the eight points of a cube. As the exotic matter traveled through the injector, they shifted their gaze to the portals out to space where the eight streams intersected and saw a shimmery cube in space begin to form. Slowly, the cube expanded until it was nearly forty feet across. Then a burst of negative energy traveled down the streams and the shimmery surfaces of the cube resolved into a clear portal to another point in space.
The coordinates to which the portal opened were controlled by the negative energy fed into the cube once it had been established, resolving the exotic matter interface into a specific portal to specific location. The more energy, the farther the portal could reach, all you had to do was orient one face of the cube in the right direction and give it the right amount of energy. They had chosen a point at which there was nothing nearby to test it in case something went wrong. But it didn’t look like anything was.
At last the cube stopped expanding and remained transfixed. Through it, they could see stars in the distance that were mostly definitely not the stars usually visible from the laboratory window. For seven seconds, the cube remained. Then, the injector cut off the exotic matter stream and the wormhole collapsed.
They stared in wonder. Silenced by the momentous event. Never before had anyone been able to create a wormhole of such magnitude and stability. Dr. Grant had been working on this for seven years, the last three of which he’d worked with Emily and Alex. And finally, they had done it.
At last, Grant drew breath. “Let’s run it again,” was all he said.
--- --- ---
Over the next six months, Grant, Alex, and Emily ran test upon test of the wormhole. They published their findings, received more funding from the university, ran more tests, and demonstrated their achievement to the rest of humanity. Larger and larger objects were sent through the wormhole and brought safely back. The wormhole was opened to different points in space ranging from less than a quarter light-year away to more than fifty light-years away. Finally, a ship that could carry a crew of thirty explorers was sent through by remote and brought back using ansible control.
During this time, Alex and Emily did enough work for their other classes to maintain their grades and graduate, still at the top of their class despite their distraction. The rest of the time they spent in the lab or with Dr. Grant doing interviews and explaining again and again how they had managed to do it. Emily even managed to get Grant to put on a business suit once or twice instead of a Hawaiian shirt and sandals.
Grant and Alex took to referring the media to Emily whenever questions needed to be answered. They, of course, were two of the few people who realized her talent for bullshit was just that—bullshit. Emily didn’t particularly appreciate this since the fact that Alex’s and Emily’s status as gifted was brought up more times than she could count. After all, they’d been labeled gifted because of their abilities, not the other way around. Still, Emily managed to make a decent spokesperson for the project since she was good at breaking the complicated project down into simple explanations that most people could accept.
Lauren became a bona fide member of the team, consulting on and editing the publications they wrote. She also brought them food and insisted they take brakes to eat it, something which became almost a daily habit. She even began insisting they leave the lab to get some rest at a decent hour.
At last, the Interstellar Federation for Space Exploration assembled a team of thirty to go on the first official exploration through the wormhole. They had chosen to go to the star Upsilon Andromedae, 44 light-years away, which had several planets in orbit. Grant, Alex, and Emily had been granted positions on the mission as the primary designers of the transportation system and, consequently, the most famous people in the galaxy.
On the night before the mission was to embark, Grant and Alex found themselves alone in their lab packing up the last of their original equipment. Having no more need for the lab as the wormhole generator had been moved to its own station in orbit around Saturn, they were clearing it for the university to use again. As they sealed the last crate, Grant asked unconcernedly, “So, had a chat with Emily yet?”
Knowing full well what he was talking about, Alex sighed, “No. Had a chat with Lauren?”
Grant grinned, “No.” He hefted the crate onto the gliding transport. “How about this? I will if you will.”
“What?”
“I’ll asked Lauren to go with me on the mission, if you tell Emily how you feel,” Grant stated matter of factly.
“But Lauren is already coming on the mission.” Alex furrowed his brow in confusion. “What was the title we cooked up for her again? Linguistic Consultant and Director of Sustenance Control was it? I still can’t believe they actually let you get away with that. I mean, linguistics? She’s an English teacher, not a linguist. And what do we need a linguist for anyway? In case we meet Aliens? And Director of sustenance…as if the cook needs a director.”
“I’m the most famous scientist in the galaxy at the moment, I can get away with a lot.” Grant replied. “Besides, I know she’s coming already. But, I’m going to ask if she’ll come with me.”
“Oh, I see,” Alex said, squirming a bit. “So, you’re going to tell Lauren, and you’re challenging me to tell Emily?”
“How about tonight?” Grant asked, grinning at Alex’s discomfort.
Alex swallowed. “Tonight?”
“Yup. I’m having dinner with Lauren at her quarters. Lauren told me Emily invited you over to watch vids at her room. It’s the perfect time.”
Alex swallowed again. Well, he thought, they had managed to make it possible to cross between any two points in space. Shouldn’t they be able to cross the space between each other? “Tonight. Okay. Sure.”
--- --- ---
Emily opened her door to find Alex, looking unaccountably nervous and unaccountably well dressed for a relaxing night of watching vids before they embarked on their adventure. He looked wonderful though. Even his unruly hair was behaving for once and his deep brown eyes smiled down at her with such intensity that her breath caught in her chest. “Hi,” she said as he walked into her room. “I—“ she trailed off as he shut the door behind him without taking his intense, smiling eyes from hers.
Alex took a breath. He was determined to tell her before he lost his nerve, so he simply plunged ahead as soon as the door was closed. “So,” he began. “We’re about to go off exploring a new solar system together, and there’s something I want you know first.” He reached out and tucked a strand of her golden hair behind her ear, then took another breath. “I love you.”
Emily smiled sweetly at him. Since that day when the code had finally worked and Lauren had told Emily that Alex was in love with her, she’d been watching him. She was certain now that she was and had been in love with him for quite some time and certain that he loved her, too. But they’d been so busy the last six months that it had only been in the past few days while they’d been packing up their things before the voyage that they’d even had time to think, let alone do something about how they felt about one another.
And, Emily had done quite a lot of thinking. She realized that she’d gone through her whole life trying to fit in despite her intelligence, trying to escape the gifted label that she felt was responsible for her not having what she thought was a normal life. But, when she looked back over the past six months, she realized that everything she valued she had because of, not in spite of, the label and her intellect, from Alex and her very close friendship with her sister, to Dr. Grant and the opportunity to be part of the greatest advance in science in over a century. Yes, the label had made her different and had impeded her in some respects, but it wasn’t bad, not at all. She had always admired the way that Alex had learned to appreciate the label during their freshman year when they’d first started work on the wormhole project, but she hadn’t understood it. Gazing up into his eyes, she understood now.
And, she couldn’t say how glad she was that they had finally gotten a moment alone. “I know,” she replied. “And I love you.”
A look of pure joy radiated across Alex’s face. “You do?” he almost squeaked.
“Of course, I’ve been in love with you for years. I just—“ She wasn’t allowed to finish what she’d been saying. He wrapped his arms around her and spun her about the room just as he had six months earlier in the lab. But this time, when he put her back on the floor, he didn’t hesitate but covered her mouth with his. She melted against him and wrapped her arms around his neck as he deepened the kiss. All Emily could think was that she’d never felt anything so wonderful or so right.
--- --- ---
The next morning, Alex and Emily arrived at the ship hand in hand, ready for departure. They boarded the ship and headed toward the bridge. They entered the room to find Grant and Lauren watching the crew running preflight checks, also hand in hand. As they saw each other, a slow grin spread across each of their faces, and they heard the ships engines begin to wind up for what promised to be a great adventure…
