Space Hostages by Sophia McDougall Read Free Book Online Page B

assistance?”
    I pulled my dressing gown tighter around me andhoped she hadn’t been looking at me when I didn’t have anything on.
    â€œYou can call me Alice,” I said. “Where are we now?”
    â€œFrom the perspective of an observer in normal space, we are occupying several points in the universe simultaneously, Alice,” said the Helen .
    â€œUm . . . ?”
    â€œBut on our present course, if we reentered normal space, we would have just passed through the orbit of Neptune.”
    â€œOh,” I said, equal parts awed and disappointed. “Maybe, on the way back, could we see Neptune?”
    â€œNeptune’s orbit is nearly three billion miles across,” said Helen. “Besides, it is quite dark. The sun is so far away, it is little more than a bright star.”
    â€œBut it would be amazing to see something so huge just lit by starlight,” I said.
    Helen seemed to consider for a moment. “Yes, I suppose you are right,” she said, sounding surprisingly wistful. “And apparently Neptune is a very bright blue. It would be well worth seeing. But the Captain sets the course.”
    I opened the bedroom doors. No one was about. I set off down the passage, padding over theunderfloor lamps in my fluffy slippers. I still had Helen for company.
    â€œSo he’s programmed you where to go, and you have to go that way—but he’s not . . . flying you right now?”
    â€œThat’s right,” Helen agreed.
    â€œHow can you see where you’re going? I mean, I know space is big, but what if we . . . knock into something?”
    â€œWe are passing through objects all the time!” said Helen happily.
    â€œOh!” I said, and shuddered.
    â€œI know,” sighed Helen . “The Captain is such a genius.”
    I was about to remind her that it was the Morrors who’d invented the technology, but then decided it wouldn’t be tactful.
    â€œSo long as we don’t come out in the middle of a star, I guess,” I said. “Or a Vshomu swarm.”
    I’d never been in a spaceship big enough to get lost in before. I passed through a restaurant, a gym, a garden of orchids and tiger lilies. I stepped briefly into a Morror conservatory long enough to look at the strange tall spirals of the red and blue plants, and the globular tank full of rainbow swimming things with many legs, before dartingout again, yelping at the cold.
    It was all so empty. We were such a small group for a ship designed for hundreds of tourists.
    I stopped at a window and watched the eerie ripples of hyperspace flowing past, and remembered what Josephine had said. Traveling like this was very, very expensive—even traveling like this for fun . The Morrors had only ever done it for survival. It wasn’t very surprising the EEC hadn’t helped Rasmus Trommler very much with the Helen of Troy . They had Earth to rebuild.
    I wandered into a lift and let it carry me to an upper deck.
    At first it wasn’t much different from downstairs; luxurious and sweet smelling and empty. But then I found a room with golden statues of mythical-looking ladies with no clothes on (except for flowing hair and seashells and the like), gathered around a slightly pointless pond. And after that there was a lounge with old-fashioned star maps hanging on the walls, along with framed copies of various magazines with Rasmus Trommler grinning on the covers.
    And over the little stage area, a hologram map of a star system hung, transparent and glowing.
    I hadn’t spoken to Helen for a while. “Is that Aushalawa-Mo raaa ?” I asked. There were twelveplanets, swinging around their star. I tried to remember how many planets were in the Alpha Centauri system. The Morrors’ new world wasn’t really a planet; it was a moon orbiting a gas giant, and I couldn’t see anything on this map that looked quite like that.
    Maybe it was more branding from the Taking You