Portal 16

By Thadd Evans

Can this small group hike across unfamiliar places, a desert, jungle, swamp, and a sea, in a few weeks?

• Language: English
• Publisher: eXtasy Books Inc
• Release date: Nov 28, 2014
• ISBN: 9781487401009

Book preview

Can they reach the cave before an asteroid hits their planet?

Can this small group hike across unfamiliar places, a desert, jungle, swamp, and a sea, in a few weeks?

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This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Portal 16

Copyright © 2014 Thadd Evans

ISBN: 978-1-4874-0100-9

Cover art by Carmen Waters

All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher.

Published by eXtasy Books Inc or

Devine Destinies, an imprint of eXtasy Books Inc

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www.eXtasybooks.com or www.devinedestinies.com

Smashwords Edition

Portal 16

by

Thadd Evans

Dedication

Michael Crichton, a science fiction writer who inspired me.

Chapter One

At the top of my calendar, a document my friends and I, Fiman, created with our smart phones, it was the year 21. I started thinking about a file, information that Onen, one of our robot guardians, had recently discovered aboard our spaceship. We were on a vessel that crash-landed near the edge of this desert oasis on a barren spot on a planet we called Somin. After searching the craft for several months, he located it.

According to the 30-year old file, the planet, Laiplen, was entering an ice age brought on by air pollution and asteroid dust. Dr. Upton’s team of Physicists along with a group of scientists placed fifteen men and fifteen women’s cloned DNA, my friends, including me, inside a micron sized spaceship. Then they injected the craft into a tiny black hole, a Planck-size aperture, a portal that remained open for a billionth of a second.

After several months, Dr. Upton’s team created 2500 holes, doors into parallel universes. Unfortunately, because most of the doors were unstable, they only injected 31 ships into 31 holes.

Dinen, the head of the President’s Accounting Office, an organization representing the entire planet, told Dr. Upton that sending the ships was a waste of time and money. He also stated that Dr. Upton and his team should have spent their time helping other Physicists, scientists who helped launch three two-hundred-foot long spacecraft.

In a meeting with Dr. Upton and Dinen, Dr. Hopely, the head of Global Physicists, an international organization consisting of 12,120 Physicists, told Dinen that Dr. Upton’s team knew more about quantum foam and micron sized black holes than anyone else on Laiplen. Nonetheless, Dinen kept complaining, saying that Dr. Upton’s plan would fail.

I looked up, curious. The early morning sky was clear, without a cloud. Close to the horizon, Alpha Centauri A, a sun-like star, the one our planet orbited, rose.

All of us had lived here for most of our twenty-two years. When everyone reached the age of sixteen, they began dating. Last summer, each couple moved into their own tent because they wanted more privacy.

I thought about our guardians, three four-foot-tall male humanoid robots, Onen, Dost and Tress, androids that helped us with many tasks.

Another topic crossed my mind. For several years, after building a telescope, Onen observed an asteroid, an ice-covered body that was headed for a nearby moon. Months ago, he told me that the asteroid, one he called Ya Ao, might strike Somin.

At the time, I shrugged it off.

My beautiful girlfriend, Niwo, a woman who always wore a black cat suit, thigh-high boots, a strap-on dildo, and a choker, rested on her back, near the center of our sleeping bag. She winked at me.

I smiled.

She removed the prick.

I climbed on top of Niwo, shoved my penis inside a hole and pumped.

She laughed. Oh, honey. Soon, perspiration rolled off our faces. Niwo whispered. My heart is open. I love you.

The next morning, she began reading about photosynthesis, an attempt to discover another source of energy for our smart phones, nightlights and portable cookers, something she had been doing since we were kids.

Onen arrived. A couple of minutes ago, Tress, Dost, and I finished making new arrows. The quartz heads are sharper, the fletching more durable. After practicing, everyone can use them to kill game.

I nodded. Did the nanorobots Tress built manufacture the fletching?

No. It’s going to take a long time to improve those androids.

I hesitated, disappointed.

He gave arrows to everyone.

Martin, a studious type who kept a diary, a record that was filled with differential equations, and notes, part of his long-term goal to build a miniature laser, examined the shafts.

According to him, the laser might create a tiny hole, a portal that would make it possible for us to send a message to Upton’s team. Although his goal was impossible, I told him to keep at it.

Last month, Niwo whispered in my ear, telling me that Martin should try something else, give up on this foolish plan.

I told her that he might succeed.

She frowned.

I added that criticizing him would upset Martin.

Niwo said she would think about it and walked away, a doubtful look on her face.

Paul, who had examined white blood cells for years trying to find a way to enhance our immune systems, scowled. I couldn’t hit anything with the ones all three of you made earlier this month. Are these better?

Onen studied a graph as it glided across his wrist-mounted screen. I don’t know. We must test them in the field.

Paul’s sweetheart, Pam, a woman who enjoyed reading