The Gate to Futures Past Read Online Free Page B

safe distance.
    Not running. To prove it, Morgan stopped and lifted his scanner instead of the placer, aiming it at another of what appeared a door but was, in effect, the outer casing of a power cell.
    As usual, the scanner insisted there was nothing to scan behind the door, a small red flashing light its objection to squandering what remained of its own power.
    Still a result, the Human thought, switching the device off and tucking it back in his vest. A significant one. The scanner might be old tech, but it would have given a reading for solid metal or vacuum. Nothing was—interesting. Evocative.
    Or incredibly disturbing.
    Morgan rubbed his beard. He’d shaved last onboard the
Fox
and hadn’t found the inclination to do so since. The result entertained the Clan youngsters and if it reminded the rest what he was? Well enough. “Too late to change course.” The words echoed down the curved hall, losing themselves in distance.
    Not that he was flying this one. Not that he could pilot the ship or even talk to it or, so far, been able to do anything productive except map where the Clan couldn’t go.
    He’d hoped to find something better.
    Trade Pact starships—proper starships—had controls. Controls related to internal systems, standardized across species by physics and common sense, systems accessible for maintenance.
    Oh, he’d searched for them. Searched with growing desperation for the first, what, five shipdays—and some nights. Kept searching till he’d been forced to an unsettling conclusion, one he’d yet to share with Sira.
Sona
might not be a starship, not in the true sense. It might be nothing more than a gigantic lifepod: a well-supplied box programmed to ferry its naïve cargo to their destination.
    If so, he hadn’t found controls or system accesses because there were none to find. Galling, yes, but didn’t that lock into the pattern he’d seen on Cersi? The Clan were pieces in a game, property, unable to act on their own until free again.
    Putting away the placer, for this area he didn’t want on anymap, Morgan walked until he came to a junction, then took the right-hand corridor.
    Free again. He’d known freedom once, had relished the life of an independent trader, however often he’d survived by his wits and luck. A luck aided by a Talent for
tasting
change, to be sure, but everyone had their tricks for dodging danger. Avoiding traps. Making the trades no one else could.
    When Sira stumbled aboard the
Fox,
when she’d touched his heart and filled the emptiness inside, his life—their lives—had been perfect.
    He should have known. Should have turned the
Fox
and run the instant he’d
tasted
that overwhelming warning. Stayed free.
    Morgan snorted. “Had to find a partner with a conscience.” Not that he’d have done differently. It helped to grumble in private.
    The lift doors split on diagonals, four sections pulling apart in silence. He’d have preferred doors that made a proper
whoosh
of effort, a clue to the sort of mechanism he’d need to maintain or repair in future.
    At least, he thought wryly, there were lifts. He stepped inside, the sections meeting behind him. The Om’ray Adepts, familiar with their Cloisters, had been shocked when the conveniences appeared overnight in various walls. Before, they’d moved from level to level using the ramplike corridor that spiraled around the outermost wall of the building, or taken the smaller, more discreet internal ramp that became, in some areas, a ladder. When
Sona
morphed into a starship, well, lifts were effective time- and space savers. The Human approved.
    Once he’d figured out how they worked. The Makers—the Hoveny, Morgan corrected to himself, still feeling the thrill of that discovery—had been humanoid, meaning a design suited to hands like his as well as a placement of sensory organs like his. Eye level readouts.