Chapter 16

Loris and Morg: The Patrol; Introduction.

The captain of the Belatunsuk 16670 (Belatunsuk means Patrol and Exploratory craft, in the scheme of things spatial, the PE-16670 was too small to have a name.) having completed his assigned mission, recalled his crew from the surface of the planet ... a very pretty blue marble ... It was time to go home.

Crew aboard, he said, "Glorious?"

"Yes, my Captain?" The voice emanated from the walls.

"Home."

"Yes, my Captain."

He slept. The dreams were ... inconsequential. When all was right, his dreams were light and airy ... when all was wrong ... he dreamt of home.

A small tone ... like a single chime ... played in his mind. 'Ah' "Yes, Glorious?" Had he not spoken one would be sure he was still asleep. His eyes were shut, his breathing slow and regular. There was none of the tension he had when the crew was 'out.'

"There is a problem, Sir."

The eyes opened, the breathing quickened ... there was that high left back muscle that tightened ... just like when one of the crew reported a problem on the surface.

"Yes?"

"The fold is not where it is supposed to be."

"You're certain." A foolish question. Artificial Intelligences never make mistakes. Things are or they are not. There is no in-between. If Glorious reported the fold home missing ... it was missing.

Glorious did not reply.

The Captain contemplated his possible solutions.

The air spoke again, "There is a wrongness here, I suggest we move."

"Move us from harm."

"Yes, my Captain."

As normal, there was never any sense of movement. An indeterminate time later the chime rang again.

"Glorious?"

"We should have moved three pc's. We did not."

A parsec (symbol: pc) is an astronomical unit of distance derived by the theoretical annual parallax (or heliocentric parallax) of one arc second, and is found as the inverse of that measured parallax. In astronomical terms, parallaxes are the apparent measured difference in the position of a star as seen from Earth and another hypothetical observer at the Sun. As the distance is the inverse of the parallax, the smaller the measured parallax the larger the celestial object's distance. One parsec equals about 3.26 light years The term is a universal concept and the speed of light is a generalized unit of measurement.

"Did we move at all?"

"Yes." Glorious was not forthcoming. The AI had never been hesitant to express an opinion.

Things were not good.