The Portal's Gift

By Carol Holland March

The most famous astronaut on earth discovers hyperspace has interesting consequences when he is marooned with his alien shipmate.

When Earth joins forces with the friendly Teneran aliens to gain access to their hyperspace drive, Josh is the first human to copilot with a Teneran commander. On the Marco Polo, a Terran ship equipped with the alien drive, he and the enigmatic Teneran Paris explore distant worlds no astronaut from earth could have visited without help from the aliens.

Not until a blinding sandstorm maroons Josh and Paris on a desolate planet does Josh realize the implications of the Teneran drive. He finds himself unaccountably attracted to Paris. Will his travels through the portals of space change his life forever?

• Language: English
• Publisher: JMS Books LLC
• Release date: Jan 16, 2020
• ISBN: 9781646562435

Carol Holland March

Carol Holland March lives in Albuquerque, New Mexico where she writes about the intersection of dreams, reality, and time. She sets her speculative fiction in locations where the veil is thinnest. She teaches classes on writing and creativity at the University of New Mexico and blogs at CarolHollandMarch.com.Her newest release is a nonfiction book, When Spirit Whispers, the first in a planned series on Healing from Trauma.

Book preview

The Portal’s Gift

By Carol Holland March

Published by JMS Books LLC at Smashwords

Visit jms-books.com for more information.

Copyright 2020 Carol Holland March

ISBN 9781646562435

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Cover Design: Written Ink Designs | written-ink.com

Image(s) used under a Standard Royalty-Free License.

All rights reserved.

WARNING: This book is not transferable. It is for your own personal use. If it is sold, shared, or given away, it is an infringement of the copyright of this work and violators will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

No portion of this book may be transmitted or reproduced in any form, or by any means, without permission in writing from the publisher, with the exception of brief excerpts used for the purposes of review.

This book is for ADULT AUDIENCES ONLY. It may contain sexually explicit scenes and graphic language which might be considered offensive by some readers. Please store your files where they cannot be accessed by minors.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are solely the product of the author’s imagination and/or are used fictitiously, though reference may be made to actual historical events or existing locations. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Published in the United States of America.

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The Portal’s Gift

By Carol Holland March

Are we clear to land? The captain’s gaze didn’t stray from the controls of the landing craft.

Clear, his copilot said. Level ground near those hills.

Josh had already targeted the hills. Since their first hyperspace jump together the year before, he and Paris were in sync, needing few words to complete their missions. The Teneran copilot had assumed the name Paris from Earth history to make himself more relatable to humans. At the command of his superiors, Josh assumed. Names notwithstanding, they had gone from uneasy colleagues to friends. Sometimes Josh swore he could hear his copilot’s thoughts, which came in handy as they jumped across vast distances with the aid of the Teneran star drive.

The Marco Polo was the first Earth spaceship refitted with the drive and Josh the first human pilot chosen to team with a Teneran copilot. No longer confined to the solar system, they explored planets in distant regions of the galaxy, a dream Josh thought would remain a fantasy until the Tenerans arrived on Earth with the news that they were long lost cousins of the human race.

No sign of life, Josh muttered. The two-person lander skimmed over a rocky landscape. No apparent vegetation. The dark rocks looked volcanic, probably ejected eons ago by the row of hills lining the horizon. "Notify the Marco that we’ll land and collect samples. First near those hills, then we’ll try another location."

The Marco Polo, a research vessel in high orbit around this unnamed planet, held a crew of only ten, but its labs and computers could analyze any substance they discovered.

Yes, sir. Paris’s long, black-nailed fingers hovered over the array of instruments.

Josh stared at those hands that looked so delicate, but were many times stronger than his own. At his console, Paris looked as if he were playing an instrument. Maybe a harp.

Josh told himself to focus. As they approached the cone-shaped hill, he checked his own instruments and aimed for an area empty of boulders. There, he said. We should get decent readings from that volcano, if that’s what it is. Those dark spots might be foliage.

Josh harbored a not so secret desire to discover a planet that sustained life