The Beaded Tapestry

Aboard the Derringer 8

Dear Annalis,

I have moved to the small coffee café to write my next letter. My assigned quarters on board are so small I knew every millimeter of the space within five minutes. Luckily there are many spacious community areas to relieve the feeling of claustrophobia. The coffee corner is by far the smallest and most private and I find it ideal to begin our onboard correspondence.  They have decorated the café with a holographic wall scrolling through various impressionist paintings. It is strange but welcomed  to see Monet’s lily ponds splashed across my vision first thing in the morning.

The coffee is surprisingly good. A bit on the weak side, but who wants a ship full of people jumped up on stimulants. The café includes a small sweet with each dispensed drink. Some type of caramel fudge with a mixture of walnuts. A delicious but unexpected treat for an automatic café.

The trip has gone  without  incident so far. After a short shuttle ride from Brighton station (two hours), I arrived at the deep space transit  station EM-40. Since the station’s orbit around the moon placed it on the Earth side during my visit, I was excited about getting a good view of my home planet before leaving it for awhile. Unfortunately the only glimpse I got was a blurry blue ball seen through a small port on the station. It was obvious that the EM-40 was not set up for the tourist trade. It was very utilitarian and had few viewing ports. Of these, most are so damaged by impact with small space debris that space outside is not worth viewing. Thus the blurry blue ball that I suppose was planet Earth.

The Derringer 8 was docked close to the shuttle hangar and after a short administration check I was able to board. I cannot tell you how relieved I am that I did not make my arrangement for travel on the freighter fleet. I saw one of the  ships docked near the Derringer and it looked quite unsafe. I know it was not,  but I feel better about using the extra allowance within the project for a passenger liner.

As soon as all the passengers were on board, the ship coordinator gave us an overview of what to expect during the voyage. We are scheduled to reach the outer planets within twenty days. After that we will report to the stasis division of the ship for processing before the ship exits the solar system. I have heard stories about what it is like to stay out of stasis during the Gambol process. I am glad I will be static  for the jump to the outer rim. It is described as having your insides placed next to you, and your outside layer traveling on. I haven’t read what it is like when the two meet back up at the end. As I will be unable to correspond during my two years of suspension, please continue to write. I will catch up on you letters when I am released from medical on the other side.

My accommodations  include a small reading/research station. It has an amazing database transferred from the Smithsonian. As the agency has taken over all data storage on Earth, it is listed as the most comprehensive data source available on just about every subject you could wish for. There is a large collection on our research subject at New London. Most of the information available I have already seen, but there was a new article published several weeks ago that I had  not seen yet. It commented on the growing number of artists flooding to the colony to immortalize the anomaly in all mediums possible. I am happy that our proposal to the Louvre has already been accepted and our sponsors are in place. Including the scientific aspect of the phenomenon combined with the artistic view  I believe  made our proposal stand out from the other supplicants.

I hope all is well with you. As I sent my first letter hard copy by a courier from Brighton station, you will probably receive this strip beam  letter first. Leave it to you to be so sentimental as to want an actual letter in your hand as a memento. I see from you status on the university site that you have returned to your research on campus. I hope this means your health has improved and not that you are fed up with being cooped up in the house. Please update your research on the array as often as you can. I will use all your saved data for setting up the new lab when I am retrieved from stasis. The Derringer will enter the Alpha Centauri system very close to the Array. Although the best artistic viewing of the phenomenon is from New London, the best scientific points are from outside the solar system, away from the atmospheric influences. I will have a total of four weeks to set up the new lab on the observation platform Phycodurus-8. That is where the Derringer will make its first stop after jumping. After that there is another two weeks to spend to studying the unobscured phenomenon. That is the length of time the Derringer 8 will be in quarantine before being allowed to continue on to the transfer station above New London.  So six weeks for one person to do what we calculated would take two people. What else can we do but hope I become more efficient than I normally am.

Tomorrow early we will be passing beyond the orbit of Mars and begin the acceleration to our Gambol point. As that will be the last data dump from the strip mail,  I Am hoping there will be a letter from you included before we switch to the new data retrieval system for deep space.

Love as Always

Victoria