“Yeah, there’s an entry to the access tunnel
right there, so it saves all that travel time to and from the original
location. It also provides easy access to the rest of the landscape so we don’t
have to use the goat track anymore.”
“I’m very glad to hear that,” I said.
“I thought you might be. So how did the mission
go? Any problems?”
“It was pretty much a milk run on the
journey there and back. Although it actually was a little tricky transferring
everything and everyone from the ISS to the starship. We couldn’t dock with the
station because our ship was of alien design, so I had to try and match the station’s
rate of turn and orbit with the starship and try to keep the ropes between them
taut for the station’s crew and supplies upload. It was almost a challenge to
my pilot skills—but we got it done in the end.”
The girls then rejoined us, so we chatted
for a while longer about general things before Nick and Sammy bid us adieu and
went home. I had to admit that I was kind of glad when they did; I could barely
keep my eyes open. As we stepped onto the first tread of the stairs, I found
that I was also glad it was really an escalator as it carried us upward. I
doubted I had the strength to climb the stairs unassisted. Mel and I fell onto
the bed and immediately fell into a deep and uninterrupted sleep for ten hours.
I guess we really were tired.
We awoke and bounded out of bed the next
morning, refreshed and full of energy for the day ahead. We had breakfast and
went outside and jumped into the buggy. When we arrived at the houses of the
new crew on level six, we found Nick and Sammy already there with them. All of
us piled into the two buggies and headed off to explore the rest of the city.
We didn’t bother showing them any more of the residential districts, as they
already had digs, so the tour didn’t quite as long. We completed the tour by having coffee
and conversation in the terminal, which was Nick’s and my favorite meeting
place because the windows looked out at the hangar and the spaceships parked
there (we were, after all, seasoned pilots at heart).
“You must have felt like all
your Christmases had come at once when you stumbled on
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