Today’s prompt was “That's Not Supposed to Bend That Way.” This is an excerpt from upcoming Book 3, “HYPERION,” of my Tash trilogy.

That's Not Supposed to Bend That Way . . .
1209 words | By Me



Jessica Hamdon was sitting at the restocked bar looking at the magically restored penthouse suite, a tall glass of orange juice in her hand as a chaser for the earlier champagne.

“Comfy?” Senator Jonathan Q. Tash VII asked, hugging her shoulders from behind.

“Mm, much. Thanks for the added gravity.”

“Sure. You ready to go?” he whispered in her ear.

“When?” she sighed.

He faced the tiny sensor over the corridor doorway. “What’s our present position, Hype?”

“Now departing Pad L 1 of Sky-One.”

“Excellent. Destination will be Titan.”

“Via?”

Surprised, Jessie spun around on the stool to face him.

He smiled at her bewilderment. “I think inertial—for the moment.”

“Compliance. Engaging main drives at this time.”

He kissed her brow. “How ’bout now?”

“I didn’t even feel it,” she whispered.

“You’re not supposed to.”

“Who’s fl … You mean, this thing flies itself?” she managed to squeak out.

In a mocked stance of dramatic horror, Jon stepped back from his love. “Hype! …And after I’d warned her.”

She looked nervously around the expansive lounge. “What?”

“Jessie,” the ship’s speaker replied. “It has been requested that you refrain from referring to me as a thing. I am a 1560 Starjammer of Exploration Class IX, with JQT Custom modifications that far exceed any in current existence. Further, this ship is controlled by the only free-thinking computer in current operation. Jessie. I think, therefore I am.”

She quickly shook her head. “I’m sorry, Hyperion, it won’t happen again.”

“Thank you, Jessie.”

Jon reached across the bar for a bottle of amazingly aged scotch. “You were saying?”

She spun on him, her eyes viciously narrowing. “You lied to me!” she accused, aiming her deadliest finger at him, while he calmly sat and poured himself a drink. “Why?”

“During the inspection, the less you knew about Hype, the better.” He looked over to her. “I didn’t want you letting slip something that would be better left unsaid.”

“Like what?”

“Well, STCP for one thing.” He held up a hand, stopping her questioning. “I’m gonna give you a crash course in Hyperionism. First of all, lemme set the picture straight. Hyperion is a computer and an entity in his own right. Hyperion’s entire memory and function system is located in a crystal sphere of pure carbon. Diamond, if you will. His brain, weighing in at an excess of 500 kilograms.” Again he held up his hand, restraining her obvious need for answers. “I know, half a ton,” he nodded, watching the look on her face dissolve to pure disbelief. “Far and above anything you’ve ever heard of. Jessie, everything about Hype is far and above anything anyone’s ever heard of. He hasn’t even been built yet.” He waved an arm around the living room. “This, the ship itself, was constructed 173 years ago and purchased, used, by my father, but the Hyperion component that just chewed you out won’t be built for another 300 years.” He smiled. “Did I lose you anywhere?”

With her eyebrows arched in incredulity, she nodded her head. “How ’bout the beginning…?”

“Okay…”

“Wrong answer, Mister Superhero. He hasn’t been built yet? What kinda idiot do you think I am? Look, I came with you because—”

“That’s what the STCP does,” he cut in.

Her eyes dimmed. “Go on.”

“I need you to understand his origins.” He whetted his mouth with the scotch. “Space/time continual projection. That was my father’s greatest achievement. A projection of the space/time continuum held in stasis about the Hyperion Way. With controlled overrides, it freezes the ship in a field of non-existence, making the vessel irrelative to the surrounding fabric of space. All of it.”

She gave him a disinterested nod. “Fabric of space,” she repeated.

“Uh-huh. And when… You do know about space and fabric, don’t you?”

“A little from college, but I didn’t really get an understanding of it.”

“Well, not many do.” He waved his hand, excusing her lack of conceptual knowledge. “Trust me, it’s there. Now, when the requested spaceline/timeline falls into conjunction with the ship’s overrides, the STC projection is terminated, resulting in instantaneous space/time travel.”

Now, she was frowning.

“My father’s maiden test of the STCP was to a future space of Earth—the year 2593. As such, he returned from the future with Hyperion wired to the ship. He also returned with ideas for negative repulsion, antimatter projection, energy/matter conversion, fusion/fission interfacing, a total concept of atomic and molecular circuitry, matter/antimatter—”

“Wait! Wait!” Jessie stood, orange juice in hand, and walked to the middle of the room. “You’re sayin’ we could, in effect, travel to anywhere in the whole frickin’ universe?”

“Well, we’d have to know where we’re going… The coordinates are a kind of X Y Z grid of the fourth dimension. Sort of a T X Y Z, if you know what I mean. And it would have to be an area that could be evacuated. Wouldn’t wanna, say, materialize in a heavy liquid or solid—a region of excessive heat, like a star…”

“…And we could do this instantly?” She strolled back to the bar, contemplating the endless possibilities.

“Huh? Yeah,” he smiled, nodding his agreement. “Yes, we can.”

“You’re kiddin’! To any time?”

“Yep.”

“Crappies! Holy—crappies!”

“Hype? I do believe the lady’s impressed. Engage STCP for Titan, in continuity with now.”

“Yes, sir. Now holding in Titan passive geosynchronous orbit. Current DTG: 30 November 1845U, 2294, synchronized to ship’s-time.”

“Okay,” Jon said. “We’ll park and make planetfall in the morning.”

“Yes, sir.”

Feeling somewhat stunned by Hyperion’s simplistic declaration, Jessie raised her gaze to the lounge sensor and sat back down. “What’s a—a DTG?” she asked in a grating whisper, her whitened face already registering that she knew the answer.

“It refers to a date/time group, Jessie,” Hyperion calmly explained. “To better associate us with current events, we have transported through space in continuity with now, meaning we have moved to a future location, one coinciding with a future location for the moon Titan. The period of 520 days was chosen as it is the average run time from Sky-One to Titan, in the current set of the planets, and for a vessel utilizing the 50,000-kilometer-per-hour repulsor system currently recorded for the Hyperion Way. We departed Sky-One at precisely 1845:18 Universal Time on 29 June 2293, Thursday evening. We arrived in Titan orbit 1 year, 5 months, and 2 days later, at precisely 1845:18 Universal Time on 30 November 2294, Friday evening.”

“…30 Novem …?” The glass of juice hit the floor, and a little table shot out from under the bar, attacking the mess with a fury. “…I missed a—a birthday…?” she mumbled.

Eight seconds later, Jessie was sitting, quietly watching the pocket-sized mechanical janitor. The device finished mopping up her minor spill, then shot out of sight under the bar. She brought her hand hp to rest it on Jon’s hand on her shoulder.

“I’m gonna need some classes for this flight,” she murmured.

“Oh?” Jon kissed her cheek. “I think that can be arranged. Hype?”

“The ship’s ready-room should suffice as a classroom,” the ship’s pilot suggested.

“Oh.” Thinking of her school days, she licked her lips in anxious thought. “Yeah, that’d be—just great….”

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