Lemuria

Helga awoke to a violent shudder. The ship was a kaleidoscope of contradictory alarms. Perhaps there had been a sense of vertigo, and then darkness. She felt the sudden pull of acceleration from below. Gravity she thought-it was gravity-not acceleration. Helga unstrapped herself and climbed upwards through the pink halo of flashing alarms.

“What just happened?” Helga shouted at the computer as she climbed.

“Insufficient data. We’ve moved. We’ve been moved.” The voice of the computer was authoritative and calm, a trait that infuriated Helga at the moment “Where? How? Why? What else? What do I pay you for anyway?”

The computer lit wall screens to show the exterior of the ship. It was a strange vista not unlike the one from the camera of the scout probe. Curvilinear white buildings joined each other at odd angles, repeating in multitudinous variations to form a vast cityscape as far as the eye could see. The horizon was surprisingly close, and the sky above was dark blue-green flecked with thousands of red stars. A giant orange sun sat just above the horizon, casting long black shadows across the forest of giant architecture. Overhead, a pale green gas giant blotted out half the sky. The vista was at once nightmarish and sublime. The ship was suspended, stern down, like a rocket from a twentieth century science fiction cover. Below it, a platform spread out in a shape resembling a colossal steel mushroom. Frozen in place by the iron grip of an invisible force field, the ship’s engines had powered down to avoid damaging the possible denizens of its new environment. Aboard the ship, four minutes had passed since the incident started.

Tatiana climbed into the control room after Helga, sporting a red bruise to her cheek. “A different, strange solar system and an analogous, chaotic planetoid. Clearly this species has a peculiar notion of a habitable planet.” she commented, sitting down at her work station. Next came Vigo, grimacing. Finally came Kat, unhurt, animated and confrontational. Entering the control room, she exclaimed “Man, look at that view. You think they’ll let us go outside?”

“First thing’s first.” intoned Helga “Where is Marius?”

The computer broke in with an answer “Marius is not aboard the ship. The ship has been displaced from its original location. I do not know the method they used to accomplish it. I do not know why, although I have some data that might bear on the question. Helga, we both know you don’t pay me. Judging from the position and intensity of thirty variable stars we use for astrogation, we are at least a hundred light years closer to the galactic center. From the same observations, another fact is obvious. In relation to the rest of the galaxy, one hundred thirteen years have passed.”