Simon Royle - Tag

I was hungry. I hadn’t had anything to eat that day and I’d been awake for over four hours. I headed down a short walky to the lower level of the concourse where travelers of all Geographics were taking a time out. Just off the walky there was a small cafe set by a fountain with a violinist entertaining the people while they ate.

I took a table near the fountain and studied the Devscreen set into its surface, selecting a croque monsieur and a latte as I confirmed the deduction from my cred. Three servbots were serving food and taking orders, their squat white bodies shining and bearing the blue Panasonic logo. One of them dispatched itself from the serving hub and propelled itself towards me around the edge of all the tables. With a polite 'thank you for your custom' it deposited the toasted sandwich and latte carefully on my table and left. The violinist was playing a jaunty tune with her eyes shut and swaying to the music. She looked young and was probably a student picking up extra cred doing a double.

I had left the Dev on and the screen was scrolling through suggestions. This perfume, that timepiece, toys for kids… Suddenly my eye caught a suggestion that sent a thrill through me. I hit pause on the Devscreen and the feed stopped scrolling. The suggestion was for travel to the Moon, but what had caught my eye was the particular resort which was being suggested. ‘Buy two, get three free nights at the Nineveh Hot Springs Resort.’ The word ‘Nineveh’ seemed to get larger and more focused the more I looked at it. I quickly glanced around me, but no one was paying any attention. Gabriel had said that Jonah was vomited out onto the shores of Nineveh.

Was this it? Was this the sign? Gabriel had said that a sign would come and when I saw it I would know it and do the right thing. A quick find on the Devscreen mapped out the route to the Moon travel port which was situated in the right of the Changi concourse. Did he mean literally do the right thing, meaning go to the right?

I was in a dilemma. I’d spent all morning thinking about being normal and now I was confronted with doing something very abnormal. I had never been to the Moon. Never even thought about going to the Moon. Not only that but my actions in the morning would look doubly suspicious. Shit! OK, think. I checked the Dev again for the departure times for the Moon. My message inbox light was flashing red on my Devstick. I had ten mins before the next flight took off for the Moon and after that an hour’s wait. I opened my inbox and saw that there was a reply from Sir Thomas. I opened it.

Dear Jonah,

Have a good trip. I like that Mekong whiskey, a bottle of that would be wonderful, thank you.

TBO

I hit reply, my mind made up.

Dear Sir Thomas,

Change of plans. I’ve decided to travel to the Moon. Never been in space. Want to see what it’s like. I’ll bring you back some moonshine instead of the Mekhong.

Best wishes,

Your nephew,

Jonah.

Jonah James Oliver

Arbitrator at Law

Coughington and Scuttle

I was decided. If they were watching me, then they’d stop me at the security zone, but I wasn’t hiding anything, I’d already told the Director of UNPOL where I was headed. There was just enough time to catch a ship to the Orbiter, travel to the Moon and be back again before my self-time was up on Thursday. After a quick gulp of my latte I rose and, with croque monsieur and ‘Life’s a Beach’ bag in hand, hurried my way over to the Lev.

Exiting the Lev corridor I walked into the Moon travel port and found myself a seat. Other Moon travelers were sitting around, reading, talking, and in some cases standing, waiting patiently for the Lev that would take us to the ship. I had been just in time as the door opened and we all filed in an orderly manner into the Lev.

“Four and a half minutes to Virgin Galactic Moon Port,” said the Lev once we were all seated.

I looked at my Devstick. No urgent messages, no recalls and I hadn’t been stopped as I’d passed through the security zone. I had never been in space before and I was excited. Most of my fellow travelers looked as if they contributed to Ents or Corps and my outers marked me as a tourist.

The Lev docked with the ship and I followed my arrows to my designated seat on the right side of the ship just aft of the wings. I sat down and a screen set in the headrest of the seat in front of me took me through the safety procedures. I glanced over to my left and watched what the guy in the seat next to me was doing. He looked like he’d done this before and he was wearing coveralls with the Broken Hills Mining Ents logo over the breast pocket. Removing all detachable objects on my person and changing my footwear for the pair in the locker by my feet was about all there was. The door closed and we taxied out. I could see over our wing to the cockpit of the mother ship. A warning sign in the headrest screen told me to sit back and have my arms at my side as the seat restraint emerged from the modified Siteazy I was in. The inflatable cushion pressured me lightly into my seat.

With a powerful thrust we were quickly using up the spaceport runway at Changi and then we were airborne, banking left over the open sea. The autopilot kicked in the thrusters and we hurtled through the sky at just over mach one. As we reached the apogee of flight for the mother ship, there was a loud clunk, which made me start and then smile sheepishly to myself. The last crash of a space ship had been more than twenty years ago. Space travel was statistically far safer than cars. With the release, I watched as our capsule dropped and the mother ship peeled away heading back to Changi, and then I was punched back in my seat as we went from mach one to mach three. Mach three is not a pleasant experience but it was over within ninety secs. I felt the inflatable cushion release me, and then my body floated to the confines of the seat restraint. I was in space.

Seat 29B, Flight VG108, Earth’s Orbit, Space

Thursday 12 December 2109, 11:25am

You have never seen a night sky until you have been to space. I was awed and thrilled. I had looked at the stars through some very powerful lenses and as images on a Devscreen but nothing compares to being in space. The travelers around me relaxed, and reaching into the hole set into the locker by my Siteazy, I pulled out my Devstick. While looking through the port, I brought the Devstick up to my lips and said, “Find route from here to Moon spaceport to Nineveh Hot Springs Resort.” My Devstick started the timer countdown for my estimated time of arrival at the resort.

We were coming up to the second phase of the journey where we would dock with the orbital spaceport and then transfer to the actual Moon landing craft for the trip and descent to the Moon. Compared to the aerodynamic beauty of the craft we were in, the image of the Moon landing craft on my Devstick looked more like a shipping container with portholes set into its side. It had a blunt black nose and massive propulsion unit in the rear end. Well, as long as it’s quick and safe, I thought, and put my Devstick back into the locker.

As we powered into the Orbiter’s arrivals bay and docked on, the screen in the headrest warned me to turn on my gravity boots. A smiling Virgin Galactic staffer demonstrated how to turn on the gravity field by pressing on a button set into the top of the boot. As I copied his actions I felt my feet attach themselves firmly to the floor beneath them. I had wondered about that and smiled to myself as I imagined us all suddenly floating about the cabin.

The traveler in the seat next to me asked, “First time in space?”

“Yes, it is,” I replied with a smile. “Is it that obvious?”