Cross Council

  ~~~~~

  Charalan passed the floating computer and stopped before the bare wall. She waved her hand at it, and with a gust of air the barrier evaporated to reveal a cylindrical hallway. Hesitant, Aimee followed Charalan into the corridor and felt a swoosh of air against her neck. She spun about to discover that the room behind her had disappeared. Curious, she reached up to touch the cylindrical wall, and went so far as to wave her hand in front of it, imitating Charalan—but nothing happened.

  A dream.

  “Aimee Patterson?” the woman prodded her gently with her tone.

  “Aimee,” she mumbled.

  “Follow me, Aimee.”

  Aimee liked the way Charalan said her name. As if she used too many long e’s. Eeem-eeee.

  A whisper of wind tickled the hair against Aimee’s neck as Charalan waved her hand to expose a chamber lined with illuminated tubes, somewhat like a grand pipe organ. Charalan stepped inside and dusted her fingers across a keyboard, the grid pulsing beneath her touch, each key awaiting her command. Aimee stepped in and managed a discreet glance at the dream-woman by her side. Black hair glistened as if infused with crushed diamonds. Her silver uniform reflected off the lights in this smaller chamber and molded to her like a layer of skin. The material looked like it should crinkle with every movement but it was silent. Charalan was tall, but some of her height might have been attributed to the boots she wore. Her complexion was flawless, making any conjecture on her age rough, but Aimee guessed her to be close to her Mom’s age. She just felt like a Mom; not Aimee’s mom, but a Mom. Aimee felt a stab of longing for her real mom.

  “Ready?” Charalan asked with a smile.

  And Charalan’s eyes. They were what put Aimee at ease in a dream so bizarre and lengthy. Before, she had deemed them violet, but in this small chamber, at this close range, they looked green…emerald green. Whatever color they were, they were really beautiful.

  “Ready for what?” Aimee tried to shaker herself into paying attention.

  Charalan’s fingers flexed and Aimee felt her body jerk. The chamber, which she now guessed to be an elevator, was not moving up or down, but traveling at what gave the impression of high velocity—in a horizontal direction. For one brief second, Aimee nearly smiled because it felt like the Scrambler, one of her favorite amusement park rides, but she clamped down on that enthusiasm and stared at Charalan, amazed that the woman stood with her arms crossed, seemingly unaffected by their transport. It would probably be very bad form to shout “Wheeeee!”

  As quickly as it started, the chamber drew to a halt. Charalan reached for the jigsaw panel, but slanted a glance at Aimee. The pause was odd, but it was almost as if Charalan was giving Aimee a moment to collect herself for the next shock and that didn’t bode well.

  “Welcome to the heart of Horus,” Charalan announced with a smile. One flick of her wrist and the wall evaporated.

  Aimee had once taken a cruise to the Caribbean with her parents. She was old enough at the time to explore the ship without them. In the middle of her adventure, the cruise director noticed her and offered a tour of the captain’s deck. It was breathtaking. Perched atop the ship, the deck offered a 360 degree view of the ocean and was flanked with panels of controls and monitors detailing radar, speed and their route. The bridge view had so impressed Aimee that for two years thereafter she was determined to captain a ship someday, but as college loomed, her aspirations turned to something more practical, like computer science.

  “Oh my,” was all she could manage.

  The bridge had to be more than ten times the size of that cruise ship’s deck. Aimee had to strain to focus on the people hard at work in the far recesses. The size of a football field, this deck offered a panoramic view, but not of any terrestrial sea. A vista of cosmic wonders shimmered with blazing stars and auroral blue-green nebulas made Aimee gasp. She walked towards the closest window to observe a light show as what looked like shooting stars playfully chased each other across a black canvas.

  A woman dressed in the conventional silver uniform turned from her console to watch her with as much unabashed curiosity as Aimee was eying the rest of them. Aimee felt uncomfortable under the scrutiny and returned to Charalan’s side, trying to keep her slack jaw from making her look like a country bumpkin. It wasn’t working.

  “Okay,” Aimee addressed her, “I’m ready to wake up now.”