Farthest Reef by Karl Kofoed Read Free Book Online Page B

Finding him lying down, they were immediately on him, checking his vitals and drawing blood, before he could protest. They strapped him to the pod and put a small cap on his forehead.
    “Do this all the time?” asked Alex, wondering if he should fight them off.
    “Relax,” ordered the tech nearest his right arm. “You had a toxic reaction to the jump. It happens … one in, oh, a hundred thousand.”
    “And they want me to make the jump to a star?”
    “Now that we have your chemistry balanced, you’ll be fine,” offered the man.
    “Come and look at Jupiter,” said a voice behind him at the door. It was Connie Tsu, dressed in a yellow foam suit. Her jet black hair was longer than Alex remembered, but all in all she looked the same as when they’d last visited Jupiter’s Reef. Connie looked him over, then she grinned. “Wormin’ not your style, Alex?”
    He was sitting up now and, aside from being wet with perspiration, felt much better. He stood and tested his legs, glad to see that the room didn’t spin in circles any more. The med staff stood close by to support him. “I’m clean ice, gents,” he said. “Seamless.”
    The two medical technicians checked him over one more time and gave him a clean bill of health, assuring him that future jumps wouldn’t be so hard on him. Then they left.
    Tsu raised an eyebrow. “You were icing on Ganny, I heard.”
    “’s me,” said Alex. “You? Lost touch with you after the last dive. How’s Jeanne Warren?”
    “Jeannie’s do’n follow-up work on Callisto, same as me, at least until we got our orders to go to Mars. She’s here with the Bio boys. I’m piloting.” Connie stepped closer and looked closely into his blue eyes. “You ready to go home for a bit, eh? You look beggars.” She noticed his bag near the door. “Time for you to get back to Ganymede,” she said. “I’m here ’cause I wanted to say hello. Stubbs says Diver is being prepped for launch. You can test her out on the trip home. I’ll drive if you want me to.”
    Alex picked up his bag and accompanied Tsu into the park-like commons. He was amazed for a second time by the arboreal splendor of the Goddard’s biocylinder. She pointed up at the brilliantly lit central core; it looked like a huge neon bulb. An opening in the trees nearby allowed him to see the end of the cylinder. The lighted part didn’t run the length of the cylinder, only the central two thirds. Tsu told him that in the curving ends of the cylinder were various levels containing supplies, a hospital, lab decks, etc.
    “All this with only three hundred people?”
    Tsu laughed and her dark oriental eyes flashed widely, an expression he remembered seeing several times before. “There’s three hundred and some terraformers and specialists from Earth. They all got picked up at Mars. Now she’ll be taking on the Jupiter crew, another seven hundred or so from the colonies … Io, Europa … and your Gannys, a’ course.”
    She led Alex to a door and opened it. “We’ll take the shortcut,” she said. “You’ve done the tubes, right?”
    He nodded and followed her through the door. “How long did the jump take, Connie? How much time?”
    “A few seconds, either way.”
    “Either way?”
    Tsu smiled. “Forward or backward. Depending on your point of view. Your wife is two days older than when you left Mars. Sad, huh?”
    The small room they’d entered had a large hole in the floor from which extended two rails. Beyond the tube was a sign on the wall that read, “SHUTTLE BAY.”
    Tsu grabbed the handrails and stepped into the tube. “Here we go.”
    Alex followed, and soon they were in the weightless environment of the Goddard’s shuttle bay. He was surprised to find Diver lit up and ready for launch. He could hear the soft whine of her engine chargers as the cable dropped him off at the open hatch with Tsu right behind him. “She looks ’kay,” she remarked, helping Alex unhitch his bag from the transport