"OK, let's see if the brakes work on this thing."
Anthony fastened the seatbelt around his waist, looking around the bridge as he adjusted the shoulder straps. They were all here. A month after being forcibly ejected, or rejected, from the Earth, all eight humans had survived to reach another star system. They would be the first humans, if all went well, to walk on TWO alien worlds. So far, they were tied with all those who had walked on the moon.
A big day: they had even dressed in real clothes for the event.
"Don't say 'break'," Chuck asked, voice pained. "I'm just hoping I put the impulse engine back together right."
"You did good," Daium reassured him, looking over from her place at the very front of the bridge. "I looked it over."
"Good," he laughed, "now it's your fault if it doesn't work!"
Melinda shook her head, arms raised up as she stretched her back.
"That's my man, always thinking."
****
They were a family now.
That, at least, Anthony knew. The future could hold anything. Unsolvable problems could be behind every new corner, but, that almost didn't matter. The last month had let them all accept their new life, to at least some degree. Let them all get to know each other's faults, habits... and, more importantly, forgive them.
Perhaps not LIKE them, but at least tolerate them.
Things had not degenerated into a wild orgy, for which Anthony was thankful. As he learned in college, such things can only hurt in the long run when there's no escape from the company of others. Oh, there had been some mixing and matching, to be sure. He was staying above it, though, and out of it. So was Hannah, to his relief. Although... she had vanished with Tammy a few times.
Anthony tolerated that.
"Computer shows downshifting from warp to impulse drive coming up." Chuck's voice was calm. That was good. It was also serious. Anthony would have been more relaxed if his sense of humor was more evident, but so long as this worked...
"Got a fix," Rinda added, from the console next to him. "Coming out in three, two, one..."
The lack of any sound, or indication, was disappointing. Alicia's voice drifted down from her perch at the sensors above.
"I'm picking up signals. Multiple transmissions, not directed at us... we're in real space."
The curved walls of the bridge faded out. Looking past the tree that filled the center of the sphere, Anthony saw the image of a planet before them. It was mostly blue, from this distance, with white and red clouds. Two moons, both small and rocky, half shown from behind it.
Hogh.
"Praise be to God," Nona muttered. Melinda cast her an amused glance.
"Too early for that," Melinda said. "Daium!" She turned to the brown Orang. "We're still landing on this place, right?"
"Yes. Need to get supplies before moving on. Check engines." Her eyes slid over to Rinda. "News."
Her blue cousin let out a sigh.
"Do we WANT news?"
"No," Daium replied, turning back to the planet before them. "But we need to know some things."
****
They were coming up on the planet fast.
Alicia kept up with the steady stream of data flowing through her displays. Much of it could be ignored. That was the key, naturally. Prioritize. Don't get overwhelmed by the trees attacking you from the forest. Or, something like that. She was helped by most of the important transmissions being sent in a universal code, rather than the local language. Nona and Daium had finally managed to program English fully into the ship systems. Some mistakes still managed to get through, though.
"OK, this one is directed at us, I think. We're being asked to give them our... title ship? What the hell?"
"You drinking again, Alicia?"
"Only when I'm forced to see you in shorts, Chuck... Ah, OK. They want our ship name." She paused. "We haven't named it yet, have we?"
"Daium," Anthony asked, "does the ship have a name?"
She seemed to think a moment, which Alicia thought odd, then shook her head, turning to look at them.
"No. Pick a name."
"The Good Ship Lollipop!" Tammy shouted, laughing. Alicia regarded her fellow blonde. The occasional sex had really relaxed her. If only Nona would come down off her moral horse and have some fun...
"Titanic!"
Rinda nodded at that choice.
"I liked that movie!"
"The first person," Chuck announced, "who suggests 'Enterprise' gets smacked." Melinda pouted.
"How about the Macross?"
"I," Hannah put in, "vote for The Bells of Tanah. All in favor?"
"Sounds like a Bing Crosby movie," Anthony told her, grinning. "I'm for it."
"Dad liked Bing," Nona added, voice quiet. "He thought he would have made a better Muslim than priest."
"What do you think, Daium?" Justin looked over at his wife. "The Bells of Tanah sound good?"
"No!"
There was silence. Closing her eyes, Daium took a deep breath.
"No... no, Justin." Her eyes, meeting his, were full of sorrow. "Don't name it after Tanah. We have to forget Tanah. Just... call the ship Bells. Please."
"Daium, Love." Alicia waited for her eyes to slowly rise up to meet hers. "There's something you're not telling us."
"Yes."
She left it hanging there. Giving a sigh, Alicia turned back to her screens.
"OK, Bells it is... acknowledgment sent. We have permission to land."
Her eyes slid downward again, meeting Justin's. She WOULD tell them...
****
The Bells entered the atmosphere of Hogh.
They were coming in like the space shuttle, despite the lack of wings. Chuck split his attention between the readings in front of him, giving the speed and health of various parts of the ship, and the view around him. They were rushing through the clouds, like some sort of immersive IMAX movie. He had some memory of such a film from Disney World, back in the other reality, when he was there with his family a decade earlier, but such comparisons were silly and shallow. This... this, well, was incredible.
So, too, was the return of gravity. As the ship dropped, the force pulled him down into his seat. The pressure was only a few g, nothing compared to what an Earth ship would go through. He still wasn't sure why, but in no way was complaining. It was going to be bad enough once they landed, once they had to actually WALK.
He hoped he remembered how.
As they broke through the clouds, the travelers were rewarded with a sea of blue. Below them, stretching to the curve of the horizon in every direction, was sea.
"Incredible," he heard Hannah whisper. Alicia, now down at their level and strapped in, looked at it longingly.
"I wanna swim..."
"Remember," Justin told Daium's wife, "we're strangers in a strange land. Let's keep to ourselves, do what we have to, and leave. No field trips."
"Party pooper..."
"Ew," Melinda said, mock disgust on her face. "You're not coming to my party, if..."
The ship banked again. There, visible on the water, was the spaceport. A large series of artificial islands, rising up like oil rigs. The outer platforms held landing pads, a few dozen at least, most circular or oval. Causeways connected them to a ring of buildings, themselves connected to large square islands with open courtyards, seemingly alternating between greenery and what could be markets. There obviously had been an attempt, early on, to create some sort of artistic symmetry. However, need had sent out new spokes which started the pattern over again, if on smaller scales.
Chuck was, in a way, relieved to see suburban sprawl was universal.
One of the outer pads began to flash lights. The ship, on autopilot but carefully monitored by Daium, descended closer. As they passed the tops of the closest building, the scale of the place finally became clear. The entire complex was easily miles across, if not tens of miles. The shadow of their football stadium sized ship approached the indicated landing zone, slowing. At the last moment, the ship swung around, facing the causeway, before starting to drop the final two hundred feet.
"Um," Hannah asked, nervous, "do we have landing gear on this ship?"
Daium spun her chair around, horrified.
"Knew father forgot something!"
There was silence... finally broken by a beep, and a message on various screens that landing struts had deployed.
"Oh, guess he didn't." Daium spun back around, not quite hiding a smirk.
"Jesus mother of Buddha! Don't do that!" Alicia laughed, the rest joining in. A moment later, the ship shuddered, the view outside stopped moving, and the slight sound of the ship faded.
They had landed.
****
It was an hour later before they cracked the outer hatch of the bridge. It took that long for them to feel comfortable standing unaided. For the past two weeks they had begun exercises, which probably should have been on the agenda all along. They were new at this whole space thing, though, and the various corporate videos had somehow missed much that was now relevant. Anthony had also begun human trials of some of the Orang drugs to see if they were safe, to deal with some of the symptoms a couple of the humans had noticed.
So far, so good. He wasn't dead yet.
Hannah stepped out onto the gangway. Closing her eyes, she let the breeze hit her face. She could smell the salt, as well as other, less natural odors. Metal, oil, garbage.
It wasn't Earth, but it would do.
Coming up next to her, Anthony put his arm around her waist, avoiding the pistol, and guided her down the ramp. Made of metal grating, it had extended up from the surface of the cement landing pad, letting them descend at a nice twenty degree angle.
Hannah wasn't looking forward to climbing back up.
The Bells sat in the middle of the pad, its cherry wood like exterior standing out against the bleak grey and tan of its surroundings. From the curved bottom of the egg shaped central section, long thick landing supports had extended, looking a bit like skis. A railing, waist high on a human, ran around the edge of the oval platform. Fifty feet from the nose of the Bells, the railing was interrupted by a tall archway. Beyond, a long bridge leading to another platform with squat, square buildings.
Standing in the archway was a giant crab.
Daium turned to the others. She was dressed, as she had been on their last exposure to the outside world, in her best dark green skirt. Polished wooden vines twisted into both her belt, and her suspenders and bra cups. From her head, on the right side by her ear, hung a leather strap with four colored wooden beads. A holster on her belt held a wooden pistol, similar to those now worn by her human companions.
"Anthony... friends." She paused a moment, gathering her thoughts, reaching up to fiddle with her four lensed glasses. "Please, stay here for a few minutes. Rinda and I," she gave her blue furred cousin a glance, gaze then going to the waiting crab, "will go talk to him. See what is going on. Once all is set, we will go into the spaceport."
Anthony cocked his head at her.
"Are you sure you don't want at least Nona with you?"
She shook her head.
"No. We won't be speaking the Holy language."
He nodded.
"OK. We'll stay here, ready to either jump to your aid, or run back into the ship. Hopefully neither."
"Yes... hopefully."
****
Rinda managed to hold her tongue for a whole five seconds, after the two started away from their friends.
"They know something is wrong, Captain," she said quietly, eyes on the creature before them as her hands strived to stay near, but not too near, her two sidearms. Daium nodded.
"Lots is wrong. Stay quiet, let me talk. Remember, the Orang are no more." Daium could see her bristle at that, but to her credit Rinda stayed quiet. Coming up on the guard, the two Orang stopped five feet away from him. The Mard was four feet high, from the tip of its legs to the top of its shell. The body was roundish, five feet in diameter, a hard shell with lots of bumps and seemingly random points. Most of him was red in color, but streaks of blue and gold wrapped around his six legs as well as his body. The two claws at the end of his front legs were blue, three feet long, with white teeth that looked very pointy. Two eye stalks projected from the front of its body, both now focused on them.
"Terrgvatf. Jrypbzr gb gur znwrfgvp cynarg Hogh."
Daium nodded. She had been right, they used Common here. Good thing she had been practicing. Mentally reorganizing her thoughts, she gestured back at the ship.
"Thank you. We are the crew of the Bells. I am Captain Daium, this is my companion Rinda."
"I am Dockmaster Vei." His eyes went down to their sidearms. "We allow weapons, but be warned: Tales of your people have made it here. You have no army with you to fall back on." As the two Orang glanced at each other, his eyes looked over them at the ship. "If you do, leave now, or you will not leave."
Daium could see Rinda's hand almost move towards her weapons at the implied threat. Keeping her eyes on the Dockmaster, she smiled.
"No army. Just us, and our friends. We are here to supply ourselves, then leave. Nothing more."
"Good." Turning, he began across the bridge. "Welcome to K'Aghak"
****
"So... those crab things built this place?" Alicia looked over the bridge railing, admiring the total lack of supports under them at the moment. Her pace increased.
"No," Daium told her. She walked between Alicia and Justin, holding their hands. With a slight smile at Alicia's apparent worry, she herself slowed down. Alicia wasn't so much jerked backwards, as forced to stop for a moment. "The Mard live in the ocean, have their cities down there. This... was built by otherworlders. For communication and trade."
"Wouldn't it make more sense to have that kind of thing in orbit?" Chuck looked up at the blue sky. "On Earth they kept saying that only once you didn't have to keep going into and out of gravity wells would space travel really be worth it."
"Space stations are vulnerable," Rinda told him. She squeezed his hand. Melinda, on his other side, saw this and mirrored the action... in the spirit of friendly competition, naturally. "Make the enemy come down into the atmosphere. That's good defensive tactics."
Nona looked between the two Orang, expression confused.
"But, what about contamination? Bringing in all those alien bacteria and such, without any sort of quarantine? Hell, on Earth we worry about doing those things just between continents! One foreign animal brought over can destroy entire native ecosystems!"
Rinda shrugged.
"If the invader wins, you were too weak to survive and the universe is better off without you."
A momentary silence fell over the group, broken only by their footfalls on metal plates.
"Well," Anthony finally said, cheerfully, "I must say I find such a philosophy refreshing. It explains quite a bit, actually." His eyes met Daium's, who dropped them in response. "So," he changed the topic, "what's the plan once we get off of this bridge and Alicia kisses the ground in relief?"
"We split up," Daium replied, looking up at the buildings closing fast. "I need to get some information. Rinda, go with them, let them explore the markets."
"We're coming with you," Justin told her. Alicia nodded in agreement. Daium shook her head.
"You don't speak the language. There's nothing..."
Justin stopped, the others following suit ten feet from the end of the bridge. Two giant crabs stood on either side of the arch, watching. Raising his left hand, Justin displayed the carved wooden ring. Alicia also held out hers.
"We didn't accept your ring, Daium, to let you go off alone among strange aliens. We ARE coming with you." Stepping closer, he lowered his lips to her ear. "No secrets," he whispered.
****
Rinda, tourist map in hand, led the six humans across a second bridge to a large open market. Stalls and tents filled the square platform, the sound of alien voices filling their ears. Like much of what they had seen so far, it wasn't so much alien as... different. Any good movie set designer could come up with something similar without much effort. What solid buildings there were had that temporary permanence feel that denotes no planning. Made of standard slabs of metal or ceramic, maybe even plastic, they were mostly one story squares or rectangles. The tents were more varied in appearance, and color. So too were the inhabitants. Large purple bear like creatures, grey insect men, round blobs that half slithered, half rolled... all either shopping, or selling.
"Looks like a Renaissance Fair," Chuck commented. Melinda gave one of the, possibly, female insects a close look.
"Not enough cleavage for that."
Anthony's eyes focused on how they, themselves, were being observed. Humans, most likely, were unknown to those here. If not, well, that could lead them to a way home. But barring such miracles, the main question would be if they would be able to pass unnoticed, just another random alien species as yet un-encountered, or if they were something different. Something... that would draw unwanted attention.
As the seven made their way through the stalls, he did notice eyes, and other sensory devices, following them. However... it wasn't the hairless humans that seemed to be the focus.
It was Rinda.
Passing a three sided tent, Hannah stopped to look at the display that made up the fourth side. Metal shelves and bins had what seemed like toys, stuffed animals, dolls... Reaching out, she picked up a fluffy ten eyed fur ball.
"Chuck... does time run normally for us?"
"What?"
"I mean... I never paid too much attention to this kind of thing, but I've seen stuff on NOVA about Einstein and stuff... is time for us the same as it is on Earth? Is it the same day here, as there?"
"Why do you want to know," Anthony asked, arms going around her waist as he hugged her from behind. She leaned into him.
"Be... because, I need to know if Mary's second birthday is in three weeks, or if I... missed it." Her eyes, haunted, met Chuck's. Reaching over to pet the stuffed alien, Chuck shook his head.
"Usually... no, there's no relativistic effect on us as we travel. Oh, we lost maybe two hours after we left Tanah, but once in hyperspace our travel time matched the passage of time out here. But... we don't know how long it took that first trip. If it was instantaneous, or..."
Her eyes closed.
"So I could have missed it..."
Nona put a hand on her bare arm.
"Time is what we say it is. I'm keeping the calendar of home, trying to remember when the holy days are. Put her birthday on the calendar. We can all celebrate it, when the time comes." There were murmurs of agreement. Smiling, eyes wet, Hannah thanked them.
"Well, I guess that means I'll have to buy a gift for her." Turning to the yellow-green crab behind the counter, she held out the toy. "Rinda, ask him how much for this..."