Neil Gaiman - Eternity’s Wheel

Usually, when teaching a new Walker how to get back to base, they’re taught a formula. It’s an address, an equation that tells us exactly how to get home, wherever home happened to be. It tells us that no matter where the base is, we are connected to it, and we can find it anywhere.

This future InterWorld—InterWorld Beta, as I’d come to think of it—might or might not have the same address, when it was powered on. Since it wasn’t currently on, I had no way of knowing; I just knew that the address I knew, the one for what would be InterWorld Alpha, was a dead end. Maybe it wouldn’t be if the ship ever stopped, or if it turned out the address could be used for InterWorld Beta when the ship powered up again. Either way, it was useless; there was no reason to teach it to her now.

Josephine kept hold of my hand, closing her eyes and focusing. I kept mine open; it was easier to Walk when you weren’t watching your surroundings change around you, but I was just along for the ride this time.

The scenery shifted; we were standing in shadows one moment, then again in sunlight.

A flock of birds passed above our heads. …

The ground trembled beneath us for a moment, as though a herd of something large was stampeding nearby. …

The brief, salty scent of the ocean and the cry of a seagull from over the mountains …

And then InterWorld Beta rested in front of us, sad and majestic, like a ship run aground. An abandoned city lost to time.

Josephine kept hold of my hand this time, as the world settled back around us. It was lonely, somehow. It was our salvation and our hope; it was part of what let us witness the extraordinary things we’d seen and experience the amazing things we’d done. It was the wind in our hair and the travel dust on our boots, and it wasn’t right for it to be stuck here, dead and lifeless.

She looked at me, subdued and determined, and let go of my hand. We had an understanding, then, and I think she finally knew why I was willing to risk everything. I think she was willing to, as well.

It was a small comfort, at least.

We raided the storeroom, gathering anything and everything that might be helpful. We brought cleaning supplies as well as thick gloves and kneepads into the hallways, and we spent the rest of the morning clearing out the debris and making sure there were easy paths to get to the main places we needed to go.

From the control room to the storeroom, down to the lower decks where we could get out onto our temporary home planet, to the living quarters, the mess hall, and back up to the control room. It took until well into the afternoon, and we were starving despite the few snacks and energy bars we’d taken from our backpacks.

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