The Journey Home (2.1)

RIVI WOKE UP WRAPPED IN A BLANKET and laying on the floor in a hallway. She sat up, and Enuet rushed to her side.

"Are you all right, Rivi?" Enuet asked in concern.

Rivi thought for a moment, assessing both her physical and mental conditions, while noticing that the complex was apparently still under attack. The hallway shook and rumbled around her, and dust rained down from the ceiling.

"I think so," Rivi answered.

"Good," Ankh interjected as he, Orlon, and the administrator exited the computer room through the wall across from them.

"We've talked to an agency on Earth that has agreed to prepare accommodations for you," the administrator said.

"How long was I out?" Rivi asked.

"A few moments, perhaps. What you did was very brave, Rivi," Enuet replied.

"Everything has been set. You should get going. It will not be long now before the Aruk break through our outer defenses," the Administrator said as another, rather harsh blast rattled the complex.

"Here is your computer," Orlon said, handing Rivi her black triangular laptop. "I found its configuration quite interesting and complex. You did some fine work on it."

"Thank you," Rivi replied, then turned to look at Ankh, "but how am I supposed to get to Earth?"

"I'll take you. We'll use the tesser cubes," Ankh said.

"Will the children join us now that Earth has responded?" Rivi asked.

"I'm afraid not. It is such a long way to planet Earth. The only reasonable way is to travel hyper-dimensionally. Most of the other children are far too immature, both intellectually and physically, to make the journey," the administrator replied.

Rivi nodded, and then stood, picked up the box she had packed from her room, and gave Enuet a hug. Ankh said farewell and hugged his wife as well.

"Stay safe," Ankh said.

"Always," Enuet replied with a mischievous smile.

Rivi took one last look around at what had been her home on Aun for the past nine years, then followed Ankh to the launch crater.

#

"We don't have much time." Ankh said, leading Rivi out into the center of the launch crater. "I'm going to give you a shortened lesson on tesser traveling."

Rivi's concerned gaze drifted toward the sky as she watched the Aruk fire-blasts rain down on the invisible shield that covered the launch crater.

"I'll do my best to learn."

Ankh pulled a piece of thin, black rope out of one of the hidden pockets in his long, vest-like robe. Hanging from the rope was a clear sphere, and inside the sphere was a silver cube. Ankh held his hand under the sphere, changed the atoms in its walls to create an opening, and allowed the cube to drop into one of his other hands. He then placed the cube on the ground in front of him with his third hand. The cube seemed to vibrate where it sat.

Even though the shield still protected the launch crater, the force of the Aruk's attacks shook the ground. Rivi stumbled forward a step from a particularly large blast and Ankh caught her by the elbow.

"Can you expand the cube?" Ankh asked, handing Rivi the now empty sphere hanging on the rope.

Rivi looked at the small cube sitting in the green sand by their feet, then back up at the shield. The blasts were getting stronger. Rivi looked back down at the cube and frowned in concentration until the small, silver cube began expanding itself into a larger cube.

"Now, manipulate the atoms to make the cube hollow and the sides pliable enough to walk through."

Rivi did as asked, then gingerly touched the side of the cube. It gave way beneath her fingers and allowed both her and Ankh to step through before sealing itself solidly behind them. Rivi felt for the sides of the cube as she found herself plunged into total darkness.

Suddenly, in the darkness, there was light as Ankh produced two lit bracelets. After he put one on his own wrist, he gave the second one to Rivi.

A large blast rocked the cube causing Rivi and Ankh to stretch their arms out and press their hands against the cube walls to stay upright.

"They must have broken through. Keep the walls solid, but change their elements so that the cube is lighter than the air outside."

"This will cause us to float into the sky," Rivi added.

"Precisely."

Rivi did as she was told. She felt the upward momentum as the cube began to rise through the atmosphere. The cube was buffeted back and forth as it narrowly missed several of the Aruk's blasts. Rivi struggled to maintain her concentration through the ride and almost lost her balance twice before Ankh steadied her with one of his three hands.

How much longer! Rivi screamed in her mind.

Rivi knew she wouldn't be able to hold the cube together through much more of this, but suddenly, there was silence and weightlessness.

Rivi looked anxiously toward Ankh, who was floating above her head beside the black box that held the only personal belongings Rivi had left. Ankh nodded, and Rivi returned the walls to their original composition. Having escaped planet Aun's gravity, they were well away from its influence. They were floating through space, traveling away from the planet.

"We must be above the Aruk forces by now," Ankh said. "We can't stay this close to Aun for too long, though. The Aruk are sure to spot us. Do you remember what your physics teacher explained about dimensions?"

"Um, yes. A two dimensional object would be a drawing on a piece of paper, a three dimensional object is like this cube. You can bring a two dimensional drawing into a three dimensional world by folding it into a cube. The two dimensional drawing would go from just a slice with only a front and back to having six sides."

"What's so great about having six sides?" Ankh asked.

Rivi thought for a moment, and then realized that Ankh was applying the physics lesson to tesser travel.

"Because you could move in a three dimensional world if you had more than just two sides!" Rivi answered.

"Yes. In order to punch through and travel through fourth dimensional space we need to fold our three dimensional cube into a fourth dimensional shape," Ankh explained. "So if an unfolded box in the two dimensional stage looks like a t-shape of squares with two arms, what would an unfolded fourth dimensional object look like?"

"A t-shape of cubes with four arms!" Rivi exclaimed.

Rivi and Ankh turned the cube from a three-dimensional object into an unfolded four-dimensional object. Creating a simultaneous energy explosion at key points all around the ship, they collapsed and folded their unfolded four-dimensional object into a full four-dimensional shape. This brought them suddenly into a whole new plane of existence.

Rivi found that she was looking at her own back. A shift of her eyes to the right, and somehow, she could also see her left side as well as Ankh. A shift of her eyes to the left and she saw the right side of her and Ankh again.

"Um ... Ankh?" Rivi murmured.

"Cool, huh? What you are seeing is how your eyesight is interpreting four dimensional space."

"So what would it look like outside our object then?" Rivi asked.

"Picture walking around our normal world in a three-way mirror." Ankh chuckled at the disturbed look Rivi gave him, "We are not meant to stay here long, Rivi. We should go. Concentrate on Earth."

Rivi and Ankh concentrated on their intended destination, and their shape unfolded and popped into existence just outside of a multicolored planet of blues, greens, and browns.

"Now you will need to turn this shape into a ship so you can control it in Earth's atmosphere while we land." Ankh spread his hands downward until his feet touched the floor. "Configure it as you would one of your computers."

Rivi kicked off from the nearest wall and grabbed her black box as well as her triangular computer, then brought herself down to the floor as well.

She thought for a moment. Her eyes closed as she first got rid of all the extra cubes and then struggled to visualize a ship—her ship. Around her, the cube morphed and molded. The space they stood in lengthened and the corners melted into curves. Windows formed in the front and along the side of the ship through which she watched as the material obeyed her thought and formed into wings with panels she could turn up and down to slow their decent. She created circuits to connect the ship's wings, minor controls, view-screens, and other components to a port she designed especially for her computer.

Rivi half-walked and half-floated over to a chair she created in the front of her new ship and plugged in her computer. She sat down and immediately began trying to access every part of her ship's systems. Ankh took the seat beside her.

"Ok, now we can relax a moment. It won't be long before the planet's gravity will pull us into the atmosphere, and then you can maneuver the ship to land," Ankh said as they slowly approached the blue-green sphere hanging in space.

Rivi began feeling a bit tentative about setting foot on this planet, Earth, a world she barely even remembered. Ankh patted Rivi on the shoulder.

"Just breathe, Rivi, everything will be OK. Once this all blows over, I'll come and get you."

Rivi took a steadying breath and nodded. Focusing her nerves on the task at hand, she began to prepare the ship for entry into Earth's atmosphere. She made double-sure the composition of the hull of the ship was heat-resistant in all areas, and then, reaching out with her mind to the circuits that controlled the wing flaps, she glided the ship down through the atmosphere. Ankh gave her a set of coordinates, and in the literal blink of an eye, Rivi had turned on the viewscreen on her palmtop so she could steer toward their preset landing site. The sky above the red, sandy desert was dark and filled with stars as Rivi landed her ship. Off in the distance, she could see the lights of a town.

Without a word, she and Ankh exited the ship after she collected her computer and the black box containing the few items she brought from her room on Aun. As her feet touched the soft ground, Rivi breathed in the cool, sweet, night air. She saw the lights of a few Earth vehicles coming toward her and Ankh from the small town in the distance.

"I must leave you now. You will be safe with these people," Ankh said, pointing toward the nearing vehicles.

Fighting back tears, Rivi gave Ankh a short hug, and he received it with all three arms. As the vehicles got closer, Ankh stepped back and drew the silver cube out from the sphere hanging from the rope around his own neck, set the cube on the sand, and expanded it. After he gave a short wave to Rivi, he entered the cube and it floated up and away.