Soon, the starship Vellamun would pass through the wormhole. Tacitus had woken the crew a week before, so they had time to prepare. By now, the aquaponic facilities worked at full capacity. The aquarium teemed with fish and the conveyor belt system going through the entire habitat ring and its water tanks carried loads of mussels.
Tapeesa walked through a small jungle in space. Little rice fields floated on the water with various fish swimming in between the plants to keep them free of algae. Doctor Moreau had genetically engineered these unusually large plants for maximum output. Back on Earth, such plants played an essential role in feeding ten billion people.
But Doctor Moreau had also miniaturized a few plants for the Vellamun's gardens. Among them were mini cacao, coffee and cinnamon trees. In the shelves right above the rice stood numerous pomato plants.
Vini climbed around, eating leaves off the plants to make space for tomatoes. The wild Red Pandas, Doctor Moreau had developed Apuas from, would eat mostly bamboo. But since the Vellamun lacked the space for those, Doctor Moreau had engineered them to be able to eat many different foods. Tapeesa did not disturb the little fuzz ball.
Soon, she came across Setanto wearing a headpiece with two green plastic antennae while carrying a red bag slung over his shoulder. A devilish grin spread over Tapeesa's face as she asked with fake innocence, "Setanto, do you know where Valentina is?"
The big guy wanted to say something, but then a muffled voice came out of the bag, exclaiming, "I'm here."
Tapeesa snickered, but this opened up a little question. "That's not the same bag you carry me around with, right?" she asked Setanto.
"No, I have specific bags for each of you. Red for Valentina, green for Sheranee and blue for you."
"How come I never noticed?"
"It's hard to see from the inside," Valentina answered with impatience in her muffled voice, "He can fill you up tomorrow."
"I know." a dirty smile spread on Tapeesa's face.
"That's news to me," Setanto raised an eyebrow, "You know, I'm not an entertainer, you can just book for a day or two!"
"Wrong!" Tapeesa pulled out a sheet of paper with very girly handwriting on it, including little hearts everywhere, written with a pink felt pen, "We made a schedule for you. Monday and Thursday is Valentina's turn, Tuesday and Friday you belong to me, Wednesday and Saturday are for Sheranee and on Sunday you get a day off."
A moment of silence followed. Setanto immediately recognized Valentina's handwriting. He just looked at the sheet for a while, amazed, but not really surprised, "I knew it! There's a reason why your rotations are so orderly."
"Well," Tapeesa clasped her hands with an even dirtier grin on her face, "Doctor Moreau said, you're on this ship to protect and comfort us. Right now, there is no evil alien in sight.."
"If there was one girl on a spaceship full of guys, created to 'comfort' the crew, it would be considered sexist!"
"True, you may punish me for my bigotry tomorrow. There's nothing quite like breakfast in bed with a big, juicy sausage. Especially if it dislocates your jaw a bit."
"Uhm..." Setanto could only stare at the blue-eyed girl with a blank face. Scenes like this appeared in every single one of Tapeesa's books.
The bag reacted in a very different manner, "I know! So considerate of Doctor Moreau to improve the taste!"
"One of our most underrated modifications I guess," Setanto sighed only a bit. After all, it benefited him too.
Awkward silence followed. The big guy needed a moment to get over all this. Tapeesa just stood there and snickered. It took a bit too long for Valentina's liking.
"Can we go on now? Daddy, you are kidnapping me! Doesn't this warrant some urgency?" her muffled voice chimed from inside the bag.
Before Setanto could say anything, Tapeesa explained why she had been looking for the impatient blonde in the first place. "Yes, on that note. I've got the shackles." Tapeesa pulled out three pairs of handcuffs with pink padding while the bag started twitching even more impatiently.
Setanto raised an eyebrow in surprise, "Since when do we have handcuffs on board?"
"Sheranee made them yesterday using the 3D printer. The ropes can get quite uncomfortable after a while." Tapeesa explained.
"I thought you like it rough."
"Well I don't." Valentina's muffled voice clarified.
"I know, that's why I use pillow casings on you." Setanto tried to turn his head like an owl, so he could face the red bag.
"They always come loose and it's no fun if I can free myself."
Tapeesa only snickered at this, "Besides, there is a difference between rough and chafing. Speaking of which, Sheranee had the idea for this schedule and she expects you to punish her for it."
"I'm gonna punish all you naughty girls for sexually objectifying me." Setanto promised with a deep, booming voice as he took the handcuffs.
Valentina's muffled voice chimed in from inside the red bag, demanding, "Do me first!"
This made Setanto sigh, "My punishments don't seem to have the desired effect."
"I find them very effective." Tapeesa giggled.
"Maybe I should try going on strike instead."
Tapeesa was not impressed, "Oh well, I'll always have Valentina."
This terrified the bag, "Nooo!!! Daddy, please, don't leave me alone with this lunatic! I'll do anything!"
"How would that be special?" Tapeesa wondered insincerely.
"Look who's talking!" the bag hissed back.
"You can't even see me from inside there!"
"To be fair," Setanto intervened, "I've never heard Valentina bark."
"Puh," Tapeesa shrugged it off, "she couldn't do it as well as me!"
The big guy let out a long sigh at this. No use arguing with the blue-eyed girl. Again, Setanto tried to turn his head like an owl to face the red bag, "What about Sheranee?"
"Slightly better." Valentina admitted.
Tapeesa had a very different view. "My entire harem consists of amateurs." she rolled her eyes a bit.
This forced Setanto to do something very mean. He pulled the height card, replying with a shrug, "OK, dwarf." Silence followed.
"This is terrible." the bag stated plainly.
"Even by my standards." Tapeesa added.
Setanto only snickered at this, "I know, you secretly like it!" He patted the blue-eyed girl on the head, refused to elaborate and left.
Later the same day, Tapeesa joined Sheranee in the command center. "Anything new from Voyager 3?" she asked, letting herself fall onto the couch.
Sheranee sat next to her, reviewing the data available at the time on the big screen. By now, Valentina had finished all the girl's outfits. A blue wool pullover and black leggings for Tapeesa with a broad, black silk belt around her waist, decorated with silver geometric patterns. Sheranee got a green v-neck shirt with golden trim over a black turtleneck and black leggings.
"Unfortunately not," the redhead sighed, "We can communicate with the probe. But it suffered damage from micrometeorites after passing through the wormhole. So we know communication to the other side works fine, but we don't know any more about what's there than before. The probe neither had the time nor the instruments to give us much data."
"No signs of alien life?"
Sheranee shook her head, prompting Tapeesa to let out a sad sigh, "But I wanted to write smut about them."
The redhead raised an eyebrow at this, "It's not just that."
Tapeesa answered by breaking eye contact. "Valentina was right," Sheranee sighed, "you're still on about Doctor Petain."
"She's a cunt, not an idiot." Tapeesa admitted with a small voice.
"Who cares? She's not here! Repeat with me: Doctor Petain can eat shit!"
Tapeesa had seen Doctor Petain eat snails, so this did not sound convincing, "She would probably like that."
Sheranee let out an annoyed sigh, grumbling for a bit, "But she hates the English!"
"Who doesn't?" Tapeesa still remembered their trip to London. A massive disappointment. No gentleman vampire or handsome prince anywhere, just football hooligans and horrible food.
"Alright then, repeat after me: Doctor Petain can move to England!"
"Doctor Petain can move to England," a devilish smile spread on Tapeesa's face as she spoke, "because those two deserve each other!"
Next day, the entire crew gathered in the cockpit in the Vellamun's forward section. Valentina, wearing a red pullover with a purple collar, cuffs and tight black leggings, still fought her own hair. She had allowed it to grow all the way down to her hips, which caused some issues in zero gravity outside the habitat ring.
The others had similar problems. Except Setanto, because he had no say in this matter. Valentina always kept his hair short. Having prepared better for this problem, Sheranee was the first to tame her hair.
Then the redhead asked Tacitus, "How long until we pass through the wormhole?"
"1 hour, 3 minutes and 27.62 seconds," the A.I. answered precisely, "We are still in the process of slowing down for the approach."
At the moment, the Vellamun had turned around with the engines facing the direction of travel. This way, they could slowly decelerate for a safe approach.
"Any Anomalies?" Sheranee further asked Tacitus.
"Negative. We will pass through the wormhole at low velocity, which will allow us to enter an orbit around the other side as planned."
Then she asked Setanto with audible unease in her voice, "You checked the telescopes?"
"Yes, once we are on the other side, free of interference from the wormhole, we can start to make a map of the Nod system." he answered, gently patting her on the shoulder.
A moment of awkward silence followed. The crew had trained for this exact moment their entire lives. Now, only the quiet snoring coming out of the Apua safety box calmed them down a little.
Sheranee checked every last dial twice, thrice or more times, asked Tacitus for the same status updates about every five minutes while Valentina struggled with her hair. On any other day, the blonde girl would have been able to get even waist-long hair to behave in zero gravity with ease. She often helped the others with theirs. Sheranee being the first to tame her hair was unusual.
Setanto tried his best not to show any sign of unease. He did not want to make the girls even more nervous. Still, his fingers fidgeted so much, he felt the need to hide them in his pockets.
While they waited for the wormhole to come into view, Valentina finished the fight with her hair. Unable to sit still, she soon asked, "Tacitus, could you take one more photo of Earth? No magnification please."
"Affirmative." the A.I. answered. Soon the image appeared on screen.
Endless blackness and dust, faint sun rays hitting the telescope's mirror. It took the crew a while to spot it, but in the middle of it all lay a pale blue dot. A single pixel, almost impossible to see with the naked eye.
Mother Earth. All of human history, every city ever built, word ever spoken, war ever fought, every tragedy or comedy ever played, all love and hatred ever given by humanity, every wonder ever created by human hand, all of it happened on this tiny pale blue dot.
The crew fell silent as they saw this picture. To think they had come so far, to think Maximillian and Aine were on this pale blue dot seemed inconceivable. Nothing they had ever seen could compare. They remained silent for the remaining approach. All of a sudden, time flew by. Only a machine could have been immune to the wonder of this one image.
Soon, Tacitus' mechanical voice broke the silence, "We have entered the final stage of our approach now."
Sheranee, Setanto, Tapeesa and Valentina felt the Vellamun slowly turning around to face their gateway to the stars. They had seen many photos of it before. None did it justice.
A giant, about to swallow the spaceship in one piece, appeared before them. It looked like a huge crystal ball, containing an entire universe and distorting space and time all around. A red glow came out the wormhole, light of the red dwarf star Nod-B.
Mesmerized by the sight, the crew could not stop looking at it. But something about this sight seemed oddly familiar. With all the stars shining through from the other side, it reminded them of the shimmering Opal effect Doctor Moreau had given all their eyes.
The wormhole looked like the eye of a titan. A pair of opal eyes, one here, the other light years away. A strange new world lay behind this eye. Just like the vast cosmos behind every pair of human eyes.
But as the Vellamun fell into the wormhole, for one short moment it looked as if the beautiful eye full of stars distorted into a horrifying face with six eyes and long sharp fangs. It devoured the ship with its crew. One bite and they left the solar system without even feeling it.
The Vellamun flew through a corridor. Space and time folding like sheets of paper at the walls, layers of the universe laid on top of each other. Stars stretched out from tiny points into long, thin rays of light and the red dwarf star on the other side became bigger and bigger.
The crew's hearts all drummed as they passed through the gateway, even though all else remained quiet. Had they not looked out the window, the crew would not have even noticed their passing through a wormhole.
As they came out on the other side, Tacitus reported, "Entering orbit around the wormhole's exit now."
The crew remained silent for a moment. Hard to believe they had passed many light years in a few seconds. Now, they saw a dim red star shining in the distance instead of the sun.
It took a while for anyone to speak up. "Any defects, Tacitus?" Sheranee eventually asked.
"Negative, all systems are 100% operational. Passing through the wormhole had no adverse effects on the ship."
A wave of relief washed over the crew. For a moment, they could only cheer and hug each other. Squeaks soon came out the Apua safety box as Funi and Vini wanted to be included in the cuddling.
"Good, activate the telescopes and start scanning the star system. Begin with nearby Nod-B." Sheranee then told Tacitus.
As the A.I. started its work, Valentina opened a box with four sensor bracelets and two Apua collars inside. She put one of them on herself and gave the other three to her friends explaining, "Let's hope wormhole travel doesn't have any bad side effects on us. Tacitus will use these to monitor our physical functions for the next two weeks."
While they put on their bracelets, Valentina opened the Apua safety box to strap the collars onto Funi and Vini. "Doctor Moreau said it's unlikely going through the wormhole will affect our health in any way." Setanto noted.
"Let's hope he is right, as usual." Valentina answered.
"Speaking of the Doctor," Tapeesa noted, "He and Aine are probably waiting for our next message already. And how about we recover the Voyager 3 probe? It was the first manmade object to pass through the wormhole, so it would be a great monument for our colony."
Nobody could argue with Tapeesa's logic. "Tacitus, can you locate Voyager 3?" Sheranee asked.
"Positive."
"Put it on screen."
No amount of training could have prepared the crew for what they were about to see. They had known for a long time, the probe sent out ahead of them got damaged by what they thought to be micrometeorites. But as Voyager 3 appeared on the screen, they saw for the first time what damaged the probe.
A perfectly straight steel plate with edges which appeared to have been molten at some point had lodged itself in the probe's sensor pod. On this plate were strange signs, written in deep black. The same symbols all of them had seen on the UFO all those years ago. It looked like the handwriting of a demon.
Thank you for reading this preview of my book. The rest is now available on Amazon in e-book, paperback and hardcover form.
