aaron_the fall of america_chapter_24

Chapter 24

I woke up contemplating meaning. It could be so illusive. Though I wasn't a firm believer in the validity of meaning, meaning was the thing I most hungered for.

After sloughing the problem off as nonsense, I wanted to write a letter to my brother to tell him I was fine and would be home soon. The weather was always nice. Wish you were here. If there were beer it would probably be free. The women were all beautiful and I was thinking of bring one back with me if she really wanted to come. But I didn't know his new address. And even if I did, with the mail system the way it was, it would take a million years to get to him.

"What are you thinking about?" Karna asked.

"My brother."

"Do you miss him?"

"Sometimes I miss my home."

"You'll be back soon."

"Are you sure you want to come with me. I don't know if I could bring you back to your home if you miss it."

"You will miss me too much if I do not come with you and let you love me."

"That's not a good enough reason for you to take such a chance."

"I want to be with you."

"And love me?"

"Yes."

Having had breakfast, we all took the journey to my craft. Karna's father had more questions for me on the journey. He wanted to see my craft and know about birds, aeroplanes and space flight. I showed him the results of my blood test and Karna's blood test. He was interested in my theory that space travel may have been part of the forgotten past of both our histories. He understood how quickly knowledge and technology could be lost and how a people would have to start at the bottom again. Though ten or twenty thousand years would erase most history, it wasn't a long enough time for large human mutations considering their capability for manipulating their environment.

We agreed it was good to have met each other and though our worlds were likely too far apart for communication in our time, we would try to remember that each other was somewhere out there.
When Karna and I were well out of the atmosphere, I programmed the computer to set a course for the outer atmosphere of their sun. As long as we didn't fly straight into it, we wouldn't likely burn. The suns gravity would help us achieve jump speed before coming too close. Once reaching the critical speed, we would snap out of space, then back into space outside the planet orbits of my home sun. It would take seventy-seven hours fourteen minutes from the time we left the orbit of Karna's planet.

I checked calculations once more before crawling into the isolation chamber with Karna. It was tight for two. The seal closed and a mixture of gases filled the chamber. We would be virtually unconscious and our body functions would be suspended until we re-entered normal space-time after the jump.



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by Joanne B. Washington

© 2001 | the jose wombat project