Page 33 of Between Earth and Eternity
“One last goodbye,” Ori says, looking out the window.
How is she still so calm? I can’t even force myself to look. I keep my eyes tight, my hands gripping the armrests as tightly as possible.
The pilot begins the countdown. “Launching in ten, nine, eight, seven . . .”
Please just kill me now.
“Six, five, four . . .”
I’m dreaming, right? I have to be.
“Three, two, one.”
Gravity forces my head against the chair, and when the wheels leave the tarmac, it causes my stomach to drop. The force continues to weigh us down the higher we climb, defying the laws of nature and physics.
“Hanging in there?” Ori nudges me with her elbow.
I nod, keeping my eyes tightly closed.
The nose of the ship continues to tilt upward until we are almost completely vertical. The blaring engines drown out most of the noise, but my heartbeat drums erratically in my ears.
“It will get a little bumpy when we exit the atmosphere,” Payson warns. Almost as if on cue, the ship violently shakes for several seconds, my armrest vibrating intensely like the rest of my body, but I hear no alarms or signs of distress. Ori places her hand over mine, and then, to my surprise, Payson does the same on my other hand. I wasn’t expecting their touch to help, but it does despite the beads of sweat on my forehead and my knuckles turning white.
We continue to climb.How much longer until we break through the atmosphere?
The once protective layer will someday be nonexistent. The question is, will anyone be here when it has vanished completely?
We go up. And up. And up.
“Entering the thermosphere. Activating artificial gravity,” the pilot comms through the ship again.
I should have watched a documentary about the levels of the atmosphere. On second thought, maybe not. At least we won’t be experiencing zero gravity; then I would definitely throw up.
I attempt to breathe evenly, a slow and steady rhythm in and out, trying to remember any of the plethora of techniques Elliot jammed into my mind. The shuttle makes one more rough shake, and then everything shifts in an instant. Everything goesquiet. Even with the cabin pressurized, I can feel the ship floating. There is nothing weighing us down now; oxygen absent outside this vessel. Payson loosens his grip on my hand, but Ori keeps hers firm.
“Crew, T-minus seven minutes to docking.”
After the announcement, it feels as if every passenger lets out an inaudible sigh, and soon, low conversations begin to fill the cabin.
But it’s not over yet. The vessel makes a wide turn, then gasps fill the air. Not outbursts of horror or fear, but complete and utter awe.
“Skyler. Look,” Ori’s stunned voice says.
“You really need to see this,” Payson confirms.
I count to three in my head, then open my eyes.
There in the window is Earth. It’s gorgeous despite the mostly brown and gray surface. I fight the urge to reach out to touch the glass of the window. It seems metaphysical. My eyes aren’t lying, though it is difficult to believe.
But it’s not the planet that causes my eyes to widen and jaw to drop.
A single second is all it takes for me to understand why Zenith has been called the greatest accomplishment of mankind.
It’s incredible. Practically a floating city.
The main hull of the ship is narrow, but it must be at least a few skyscrapers long. The area that appears to be the bridge of the ship comes to a point like a large bird’s beak, while the rest of the body is wrapped by huge, rotating rings that connect with some kind of spindle network system linking them to each other.
I am so transfixed that I don’t notice Payson leaning over to get a better look until he says, “Looks even better in person.”
