Log 1 Matter | Antimatter by Selina Brown

refused to explain
and Simon finally told Jamie to drop the issue.
    Marc had checked on Ara, as was his habit,
and gone to the garage to work on his motorbike. Jamie leaned over,
studying his charge. Ara’s hair was light, honey colored, her eyes
bright blue when awake, her face narrow, losing baby fat over the
years. Her laugh filled the homestead and Jamie’s heart. He rarely
had to find replacements as Ara kept them on their toes, and “Ara’s
antics” became a daily part of their morning or afternoon tea
sessions. The tapestry of her life made Jamie feel something was
worthwhile.
    “ Jamie?”
    He stood upright and pressed on his temple
once to activate his comms, letting Diane know he was receiving but
wouldn’t transmit.
    She relayed the message. “There’s a ranger
approaching Perza Space Station. Your orders are to attend and to
monitor. ETA sixteen hours.”
    Jamie double tapped his temple, deactivating
the comms. Ara stirred and he walked to the back of her room,
triggering a sliding door to enter the tunnel behind the homestead
dug into the hill. After some more digging, it now led all the way
to his headquarters. His cortical node buzzed telling him Ara was
on the move. He made a mental note to notify Marc to keep Ara
close. Jamie nodded to the guard on duty and left via a shared
four-wheeled drive for the atmospheric lift. The order hadn’t been
coded as an emergency so using his ranger from planet-side wasn’t
an option. Planetary laws kept ranger arrivals to and departures
from the planet to a minimum for safety and environmental measures.
He had a small ranger docked at one of the orbital stations. Diane
sent him a message explaining that his trip had been booked on the
shuttle lift and the ranger was being prepped by the security team
rostered on station.
    Jamie drove east towards Saratoga City taking
the back roads through wooded lands and arrived after twenty
minutes at the spaceport. It was more of a lift-port but no one
liked that name. Diane sent him a more detailed message that a
ranger had dropped out of HaV and connected with Perza Space
Station to begin docking procedures. He drove down the hill
reaching the end of the woods to a large, cleared region, fenced
for safety rather than security measures. So accustomed to the
massive cabling system rising into the atmosphere and that had been
deeply embedded in the earth, Jamie paid it little attention after
the first few times.
    He flashed his pass at the security gate’s
scanning monitor impatiently and drove forward before the gates
finished opening. He parked the vehicle in one of the many parks
and ran to the smaller installation reserved for royalty and
special guests. A harassed looking attendant waved him to hurry. He
ran through the security gate, hearing the unit scan him and beep
the “all clear” sounds. He moved through the glass doors, being
held open by a lift host, and walked more sedately across the
tarmac to the large, shuttle-shaped lift. At the click, click
behind him he knew the lift host was hurrying to catch up. He sped
up a little and nodded to another lift host with a strained smile
plastered on her face.
    Jamie grinned as he knew orders had been
issued to delay the ride to the orbital station. No doubt, Queen
Silvia would see a complaint about the delayed trip. It was clear
in Jamie’s mind now that this was important enough to create what
he could only think of as unwanted attention, but not clear as to
why it wasn’t important enough to warrant him taking up a ranger or
transportal. He entered a small cabin, ignored the exasperated or
bored gazes from the travelers, and sat on an empty seat. Without
the HaV intercept, it would take eight days to climb to
geosynchronous orbit but it took only eleven hours all up. It was
an hour on either side of the intercept and then nine hours within
the dimensions to travel up or down. But even with his team
preparing the way it would be several more hours to get to the
space