Excerpt from Bright of the Sky, Book 1 of The Entire and the Rose

 

On a future Earth, former starship pilot Titus Quinn has been sidelined by his company, Minerva, for psychologcal instability. He lost a starship, then mysteriously he was found. His only memory of what happened was that he’d been to another place, or world, or universe--where he lost his wife, Johanna, and eleven year-old daughter, Sydney, who were traveling on the starship with him. When the company’s AI discovers the universe next door, Minerva, led by Helice Maki, decide to send Titus back to investigate how to profit from the discovery. In this scne, Titus is being prepared for insertion into that universe. But all he cares about is finding Johanna and Sydney. He fears what he’ll discover about their fate. He believes it’s something  terrible. And hopes with all his heart that he’s wrong.

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     “Take a deep breath,” the surgeon said. “What do you smell?”

     Titus Quinn sat on the edge of the gurney, wearing a poly-paper gown, getting last instructions as he headed to the lab module and the harness.

     “What do you smell?” Every time Quinn opened his mouth it hurt. And brought a flood of smells.

     “Antisepsis, from that open vial on the table,” Quinn replied. “Something acrid from the carpet.”

     “What else?”

     Quinn opened his mouth a little wider, letting the air currents flow over the newly implanted Jacobson’s organ in the roof of his mouth. “Something stinks over there,” he said, turning to the counter. He closed his eyes, sniffing. “It’s rotten. Mold.”

     The doc smiled, lifting a towel off a small dish of mold. “Good. But don’t close your eyes. Learn to trust your heightened sense of smell without shutting down other senses.”

     Trust the docs to modify him for survival in the other place. Trust them to give him the olfactory sense of a chimpanzee.

     “Right,” Quinn said, trying to make nice to the people who could still ground him. The docs needed to clear him—despite the fact that he’d lived for years over there without any help breathing or help selecting food that wouldn’t throw him into anaphylactic shock. The docs wanted to play, and Quinn wanted to get going, just get going. He’d waited two years to go back.

     The door opened, and Helice Maki sailed into the exam room, greeting him with a nod. It annoyed Quinn to have such a perky enemy. Five foot four inches tall and sporty-looking, except for the fangs.

     The doc acknowledged Helice, then continued, “It won’t be foolproof, but let your sense of smell guide you to high nutrient content, steer you away from toxins. When you’re revolted by the smell or taste, don’t imbibe.” The doc gestured for Quinn to open his mouth and peered in, lighting his way with a small wand. “In a way,” he said, speaking with the leisure of a dentist having a long conversation with someone whose mouth is stuffed with gauze, “in a way, we’re going backward to go forward. Adopting our primate cousin’s ability to forage through the chemical minefield of the plant world.”

     Helice said, “The upgrades you’re getting look ordinary. We don’t want to call attention to you, in case you need local cover.”

     The doc withdrew the probe from Quinn’s mouth. “Even on Earth, lots of compounds can kill you. I assume where you’re going will be as chemically charged. There’ll be a lineup of alkaloids, phenolics, tannins, cyanogenic glycosides, and terpenoids—or their other-side equivalents. We’re counting on your body’s enhanced chemical knowledge to steer you to the edibles.”

     Other-side equivalents. Quinn knew there would be plenty of those, and not just plant compounds, either.

     Anticipation had kept him awake for the past two nights, though he might have slept, dreaming that he couldn’t sleep. Oddly, right now he was calm as a statue, whether from exhaustion or a state of grace, facing death, facing the other place. If Quinn were religious—as Johanna had been—now would be a good time for a prayer. But he was hopeless when it came to religion. What was the point, when life was all you wanted? He’d asked Johanna once why she went to Mass. She’d answered, “To be captured by it.” Everything she said was so deeply her. He was captured by her. So perhaps he did know why she went to Mass.

     “Okay,” the doc said. “You’re excused. Any questions?”

     “Weapons.”

     Helice shook her head. “No. If you need them, your mission is over anyway.”

     Quinn looked into her perky face. So easy to be a pacifist when you’re twenty.

     He went to the next item on his list. “My pictures.” They’d already told him no personal objects. “I want my pictures.” Johanna and Sydney were fading. The pictures were important.

     Helice bit her lip and glanced at the doc. Is he stable, do you think?

     The doc patted his shoulder. “I think you remember what they look like.”

     Quinn looked at the hand, which was quickly withdrawn. He jumped down from the gurney.

     They led him through a side door to the sterilizing booth, where he’d lose a few nanometers of skin by the time the sonic shower was done.

     “Quinn,” came Helice’s voice. When he looked at her she said, “Godspeed.” She actually looked concerned for him.

     He walked into the booth naked, except for the photos taped to the soles of his feet.

     The smell was pungent, earthy, heavy with ozone and antiseptics. The brew of chemicals revolted him, as the doc had said, meaning he should avoid this place.

     Well, he knew that much. He was eager to be done with this side of reality.

     Scoured and sore, he emerged into the main tube leading to the transition module. They called it interfacing; but he’d also heard the techs calling it punching through. He was met by two paper-suited figures who escorted him toward the transition module, as though he might bolt at the last minute. A heavy door parted before them, and they emerged into the module with its racks of electronics, cabling, and wires surrounding a small platform where an empty harness hung suspended.

     It was all, at this point, unreal, with his senses hideously alert, and his mind damped down. He found himself wondering if the pictures had survived the sonic cleansing. He wanted to have a profound thought or two, but instead he was blank and numb.

     They helped him into plain woven wool trousers and a fitted shirt. He drew on socks and boots, careful to avoid crinkling noises from the pictures. Then he stepped onto the platform, where an attendant helped him thread his arms through the sleeves of the harness for the brief suspension. The attendants left the module.

Now they would wait for a lock on that place, that place that shifted, constantly shifted. When they pierced it to three hundred nanometers, they would lock on and throw the power switch, sending him into a state frighteningly called decoherence.

     They would hoist him two seconds before launch. He waited. It was cold. He stood spread-eagled, a sacrificial lamb, a sacrificial man.

     He began to worry that they had already thrown the switch and he would be lost forever in this harness, waiting for the world.

     Then it came.

     The hoist lifted. The cannon shot.

     But silently. No noise, but the smell. He was in a world of olfactory nonsense. The smell of the world dissolving, the smell of the quark-filled universe. He saw his own arm hanging out at his side. Saw the pulse of blood through an artery. He followed the movement of blood, traversing his upper arm with the stately pace of a glacier. At this rate, the blood would never make it back for reoxygenation in time to . . .

     He couldn’t remember what blood was for.

     His arms were gone. Uh-oh. Floating ahead of the rest of him. He hoped that didn’t mean a screw-up. He looked through the harness, and his torso was drifting suspended, armless, through the corridors of the space platform. Picking up speed, coming to the end of the corridor where the wall up ahead was about to have a very personal interaction with his face.

     Tearing through the wall, past the foam of insulation, data structures, carbon nano hull. Waiting to explode in vacuum space. Looking back at the hole in the space platform, people frozen in midstride. Better close the hole, he thought. He saw people changing positions. They weren’t frozen, they were just moving so slowly. He turned around, to look where he was going.

     Ahead was vast, black, capturing space. He submitted himself to it.

     The universe rewarded him by knocking him senseless.