28. The Other Journeyman
Chapter twenty-eight
The Other Journeyman
Tripping on the moon was less of a scare than on Earth.
I was clumsy walking out of the shuttle and towards the resort hub and my heightened dexterity did little to help.
I took a few seconds before standing up as I examined the moon’s surface through my spacesuit’s visor.
I rubbed the dust between the thick fingers of my gloves and wondered if anything I touched had been taken from the moon that once orbited the Earth.
Maybe this was that same moon, only turned into a vehicle.
Maybe the real moon was back watching over the remains of the old Earth like a god over the corpse of a fallen child.
Ralia helped me up, giggling through the voice channel as she held my hand and jumped along the path.
Barricades lined each side of the path with tall glass walls extending from them.
To the right, there was nothing but an empty field of dusty rock that continued out into the abyss.
To the left, I saw two large buildings with a sleek design and multiple spires and a skybridge connecting them in the middle.
A second building was to the left of those two, but the bulbous design like stacked bubbles was an obvious sign that this was a separate resort.
The third rose just beyond the diamond-shaped hub straight again.
I couldn’t see the third resort’s base, but its pyramidal leak rose high enough to give me an idea of how that building might appear.
I let go of Ralia as we reached the doors to the resort hub and entered the airlock with another couple. Most of the passengers were still trying to make their way to the hub. Some fell as I had while others were trying too hard to walk as if they were still on Earth.
The doors closed and the hiss of depressurization shut out all other sound. The next door opened and we proceeded down a corridor, then entered another room that seemed like another airlock, after which the weight of my suit increased.
“You may now open your visors,“ a voice spoke in my helmet’s speakers. I wasn’t the first to trust it, but once Ralia did so and survived, so I figured I could.
The next door opened to what looked like a hotel lobby with workers dressed in fine apparel and other guests floating around on panels that transported them–still in their spacesuits–and their luggage.
A woman with an ascot and pantsuit welcomed us and waved us forward to stand on one of those floating panels.
We stepped forward, placing our bags next to us and feeling out what felt like Earth’s gravity.
I lifted my legs, sensing the heaviness of my spacesuit.
I had expected to receive an artificial Earth atmosphere to breathe in while inside but didn’t know if they would follow through with a simulation of Earth’s gravity.
I figured it took more than the press of a button to create but didn’t attempt to understand.
The false-moon might be some kind of a centrifuge for all I knew and that wouldn’t make the situation any clearer.
I didn’t need to understand the moon’s makeup, only the purpose dwelling beneath the resort facade.
A screen showed our faces as it scanned and identified our reservations. Our platform took us to the right, while most of the guests went straight or to the left.
I looked at Ralia, raised my eyebrows, and breathed out.
“Don’t fall,” she said.
“It doesn’t help bouncing back between two kinds of gravity.”
She shrugged. “Get used to it.”
“You planning on staying long?”
“Who knows how long it will take to end this.”
“Perhaps Sha wishes for an extended stay,” Zhu said.
Our carrier panel brought us past another sealed doorway to a reception desk manned by two ands whose grey skin matched the moon’s surface.
One was male, the other female–though both were mere presentations for genderless constructs–with silver clothing reminiscent of the retro old-Earth style of the Americas.
They each had piercing yellow eyes that glowed like miniature suns.
“Welcome to Hadrian Palace,” the female said while the male scanned our faces. Our faces and associated data appeared on the small image cube on the reception counter. “Mister PetNeb and Miss RalEsp. Does that sound correct?”
I eyed Ralia, wondering if she, too, was speculating about what the ands thought of our Luminate League names being used for hotel reservations. Her confident grin gave no notion of it.
“Yes,” Ralia said. “Thank you.”
The female and bowed then reached out her hand. Ralia touched it and I saw a subtle flash of blue light pass from the and to Ralia. She then forwarded the room number, access key, and brochure of amenities to my neurospace.
“Is there any other way I can be of assistance?” the and asked.
“Nah, I think we’re good.”
The ands bowed in unison and our floating panel proceeded down the hall.
We passed through another set of airlocked doors and heeded the command to seal our visors which was followed by another pressure adjustment.
We exited the hub and started on another path towards the Hadrian Palace.
The floating panel remained beneath us and stopped to let me on after I fell off.
The drop was only a foot. But it was still embarrassing enough to earn a laugh from Ralia.
I shook my head and ignored her and found it easy to return to solemnity in the dense quiet of space with a palace before me. Our hotel–if one could call it that–was the pyramid I had seen on the way to the hub.
The grandeur of it forced respect upon me, as if my body knew it was more than a hotel.
“I know,” Zhu said. “Don’t claim my knowledge for yourself.”
Fine, then what is it?
“A building.”
I knew that already. What else is there to it?
“Fraud.”
What do you mean?
“Just as your people bow to the violet elites, this is for some false god.”
Knowledge?
“What is knowledge?
Information.
“Information according to truth.”
Life as it is.
“Free of lies.”
Right.
“So any false truth one bows down to is a false god. Anyone who believes your Earth is the true Earth is, in a way, obeying a false god.”
So what is true? Your information?
“Where does my information originate?”
The true God?
“A connection to that being, perhaps.”
Nuwa?
“Light. True light.”
And that is?
“Something I hope you can understand by doing away with this heresy.”
I still don’t think you know what this building is.
“I think we will both learn momentarily.”
It took what felt like ten minutes to reach the palace.
It appeared large from a distance, but truly palatial as we approached it.
It was akin to a skyscraper with the base wide enough to cover an entire city block.
It was white with multiple spires forming a futuristic depiction of an ancient pyramid.
The airlock entrance to Hadrian Palace made the one in the resort hub seem like a storage closet. White steel like marble surrounded us with violet light lines running across the wall. The hisses of pressure changes were muffled and sounded like nothing under the peaceful synth muzak.
We exited, stepped off the floating panel, then removed our spacesuits with the help of silver skinned ands who took them down the hall.
A notification popped up on my interface to indicate that my suit was in a safe storage and would be returned whenever I wanted to leave the building.
We stood in a long, capacious white hallway of the same design as the airlock chamber with clouded glass doors at the end.
“Would you like to change into something more stylish or comfortable?” my and assistant asked.
“What? I…” I was wearing my typical tight jacket and pants we wore while working, but Ralia was wearing skin-tight white spandex that covered everything except for her hands, head, and feet. “Do you want to change?”
She checked herself. “Nah, I think this’ll be good.
I was already hot inside the spacesuit so it’s nice to breathe a bit.
” As she stretched, I could see slits where her shaved armpits were.
She turned, revealing a bare back and openings on the backs of her appendages. “What? How did you not cook in yours?”
“You weren’t wearing that when you put on the space suit.”
She shrugged. “I know how to strip when I need to.”
I squinted, then shook my head. At least Ralia was being Ralia, despite Sha’s influence.
“Don’t worry,” she said. “I’ll put more on if we have any special meetings or anything of the like, you plug?”
“Sure.”
“May we take your luggage to your room?” one of the ands asked.
“No,” I replied.
“Calm down, babe.” She rested her hand on my shoulder. I could feel the heat of her grip radiate through my clothes.
She faced the and. “Yes, you can take it. Thank you.”
The ands bowed, then took our luggage and spacesuits onto a panel slightly larger than our own.
I stepped back onto the panel, Ralia followed, and we proceeded down the hallway as the ends entered through a hidden doorway that opened in the otherwise white wall.
The passageway shut behind the ands and silence returned to the hallway.
I listened to the muzak, noting that the subtle synths created an atmosphere less like a shopping mall and more like a meditation lounge.
The sounds were ethereal, matching the style of a distant realm instead of a luxury hotel.
The glass doors at the end of the hall opened to allow us through to the main lobby.
Giant, crystalline stalactites hung from the ceiling like giant gems in a cavern.
Each pulsed with a different color of light to contrast with the otherwise white walls.
The music continued with no other voices or sounds to interrupt the peace besides the subtle trickle of water running down a golden panel with the name Hadrian Palace printed under the icon of a pyramid.