Chapter 13

"OK, let's see if the brakes work on this thing."

Anthony fastened the seatbelt around his waist, looking around the bridge as he adjusted the shoulder straps. They were all here. A month after being forcibly ejected, or rejected, from the Earth, all eight humans had survived to reach another star system. They would be the first humans, if all went well, to walk on TWO alien worlds. So far, they were tied with all those who had walked on the moon.

A big day: they had even dressed in real clothes for the event.

"Don't say 'break'," Chuck asked, voice pained. "I'm just hoping I put the impulse engine back together right."

"You did good," Daium reassured him, looking over from her place at the very front of the bridge. "I looked it over."

"Good," he laughed, "now it's your fault if it doesn't work!"

Melinda shook her head, arms raised up as she stretched her back.

"That's my man, always thinking."

They were a family now.

That, at least, Anthony knew. The future could hold anything. Unsolvable problems could be behind every new corner, but, that almost didn't matter. The last month had let them all accept their new life, to at least some degree. Let them all get to know each other's faults, habits ... and, more importantly, forgive them.

Perhaps not LIKE them, but at least tolerate them.

Things had not degenerated into a wild orgy, for which Anthony was thankful. As he learned in college, such things can only hurt in the long run when there's no escape from the company of others. Oh, there had been some mixing and matching, to be sure. He was staying above it, though, and out of it. So was Hannah, to his relief. Although ... she had vanished with Tammy a few times.

Anthony tolerated that.

"Computer shows downshifting from warp to impulse drive coming up." Chuck's voice was calm. That was good. It was also serious. Anthony would have been more relaxed if his sense of humor was more evident, but so long as this worked...

"Got a fix," Rinda added, from the console next to him. "Coming out in three, two, one..."

The lack of any sound, or indication, was disappointing. Alicia's voice drifted down from her perch at the sensors above.

"I'm picking up signals. Multiple transmissions, not directed at us ... we're in real space."

The curved walls of the bridge faded out. Looking past the tree that filled the center of the sphere, Anthony saw the image of a planet before them. It was mostly blue, from this distance, with white and red clouds. Two moons, both small and rocky, half shown from behind it.

Hogh.

"Praise be to God," Nona muttered. Melinda cast her an amused glance.

"Too early for that," Melinda said. "Daium!" She turned to the brown Orang. "We're still landing on this place, right?"

"Yes. Need to get supplies before moving on. Check engines." Her eyes slid over to Rinda. "News."

Her blue cousin let out a sigh.

"Do we WANT news?"

"No," Daium replied, turning back to the planet before them. "But we need to know some things."

They were coming up on the planet fast.

Alicia kept up with the steady stream of data flowing through her displays. Much of it could be ignored. That was the key, naturally. Prioritize. Don't get overwhelmed by the trees attacking you from the forest. Or, something like that. She was helped by most of the important transmissions being sent in a universal code, rather than the local language. Nona and Daium had finally managed to program English fully into the ship systems. Some mistakes still managed to get through, though.

"OK, this one is directed at us, I think. We're being asked to give them our ... title ship? What the hell?"

"You drinking again, Alicia?"

"Only when I'm forced to see you in shorts, Chuck ... Ah, OK. They want our ship name." She paused. "We haven't named it yet, have we?"

"Daium," Anthony asked, "does the ship have a name?"

She seemed to think a moment, which Alicia thought odd, then shook her head, turning to look at them.

"No. Pick a name."

"The Good Ship Lollipop!" Tammy shouted, laughing. Alicia regarded her fellow blonde. The occasional sex had really relaxed her. If only Nona would come down off her moral horse and have some fun...

"Titanic!"

Rinda nodded at that choice.

"I liked that movie!"

"The first person," Chuck announced, "who suggests 'Enterprise' gets smacked." Melinda pouted.

"How about the Macross?"

"I," Hannah put in, "vote for The Bells of Tanah. All in favor?"

"Sounds like a Bing Crosby movie," Anthony told her, grinning. "I'm for it."

"Dad liked Bing," Nona added, voice quiet. "He thought he would have made a better Muslim than priest."

"What do you think, Daium?" Justin looked over at his wife. "The Bells of Tanah sound good?"

"No!"

There was silence. Closing her eyes, Daium took a deep breath.

"No ... no, Justin." Her eyes, meeting his, were full of sorrow. "Don't name it after Tanah. We have to forget Tanah. Just ... call the ship Bells. Please."

"Daium, Love." Alicia waited for her eyes to slowly rise up to meet hers. "There's something you're not telling us."

"Yes."

She left it hanging there. Giving a sigh, Alicia turned back to her screens.

"OK, Bells it is ... acknowledgment sent. We have permission to land."

Her eyes slid downward again, meeting Justin's. She WOULD tell them...

The Bells entered the atmosphere of Hogh.

They were coming in like the space shuttle, despite the lack of wings. Chuck split his attention between the readings in front of him, giving the speed and health of various parts of the ship, and the view around him. They were rushing through the clouds, like some sort of immersive IMAX movie. He had some memory of such a film from Disney World, back in the other reality, when he was there with his family a decade earlier, but such comparisons were silly and shallow. This ... this, well, was incredible.

So, too, was the return of gravity. As the ship dropped, the force pulled him down into his seat. The pressure was only a few g, nothing compared to what an Earth ship would go through. He still wasn't sure why, but in no way was complaining. It was going to be bad enough once they landed, once they had to actually WALK.

He hoped he remembered how.

As they broke through the clouds, the travelers were rewarded with a sea of blue. Below them, stretching to the curve of the horizon in every direction, was sea.

"Incredible," he heard Hannah whisper. Alicia, now down at their level and strapped in, looked at it longingly.

"I wanna swim..."

"Remember," Justin told Daium's wife, "we're strangers in a strange land. Let's keep to ourselves, do what we have to, and leave. No field trips."

"Party pooper..."

"Ew," Melinda said, mock disgust on her face. "You're not coming to my party, if..."

The ship banked again. There, visible on the water, was the spaceport. A large series of artificial islands, rising up like oil rigs. The outer platforms held landing pads, a few dozen at least, most circular or oval. Causeways connected them to a ring of buildings, themselves connected to large square islands with open courtyards, seemingly alternating between greenery and what could be markets. There obviously had been an attempt, early on, to create some sort of artistic symmetry. However, need had sent out new spokes which started the pattern over again, if on smaller scales.

Chuck was, in a way, relieved to see suburban sprawl was universal.

One of the outer pads began to flash lights. The ship, on autopilot but carefully monitored by Daium, descended closer. As they passed the tops of the closest building, the scale of the place finally became clear. The entire complex was easily miles across, if not tens of miles. The shadow of their football stadium sized ship approached the indicated landing zone, slowing. At the last moment, the ship swung around, facing the causeway, before starting to drop the final two hundred feet.

"Um," Hannah asked, nervous, "do we have landing gear on this ship?"

Daium spun her chair around, horrified.

"Knew father forgot something!"

There was silence ... finally broken by a beep, and a message on various screens that landing struts had deployed.

"Oh, guess he didn't." Daium spun back around, not quite hiding a smirk.

"Jesus mother of Buddha! Don't do that!" Alicia laughed, the rest joining in. A moment later, the ship shuddered, the view outside stopped moving, and the slight sound of the ship faded.

They had landed.

It was an hour later before they cracked the outer hatch of the bridge. It took that long for them to feel comfortable standing unaided. For the past two weeks they had begun exercises, which probably should have been on the agenda all along. They were new at this whole space thing, though, and the various corporate videos had somehow missed much that was now relevant. Anthony had also begun human trials of some of the Orang drugs to see if they were safe, to deal with some of the symptoms a couple of the humans had noticed.

So far, so good. He wasn't dead yet.

Hannah stepped out onto the gangway. Closing her eyes, she let the breeze hit her face. She could smell the salt, as well as other, less natural odors. Metal, oil, garbage.

It wasn't Earth, but it would do.

Coming up next to her, Anthony put his arm around her waist, avoiding the pistol, and guided her down the ramp. Made of metal grating, it had extended up from the surface of the cement landing pad, letting them descend at a nice twenty degree angle.