Part 1
The corridors on the Trig seem, at first sight, as if they could appear in any building on Earth. Long, white painted walls are broken from time to time with doors in a surprising variety of shapes and sizes. There is a certain uniformity about it all as if the place is optimised for the use of as many species simultaneously as possible. Only the staggering view visible through the occasional windows reminds of you of where you are and add to your disorientation. Many show only other parts of the immense structure in which you have materialised, a few show the same dizzying starscape that greeted you. Both are near the edge of what your mind can accept and you realise that if you hadn't been a Tomorrow Person you would almost certainly already be a cowering wreck in the corner of some room.
For a few minutes you try to convince yourself that this is all some hallucination. It's the details that convince you otherwise. The occasional mark on the wall, the 'people' moving around in the distant sections you can see through the windows, the obviously practical sections and devices you spot, the miles of corridor through which Stephen is leading you. All of them point to the basic reality of what you are seeing.
You are very quiet as Stephen leads you into a room that on any other day would have left you gasping. The chamber is circular and domed. The walls are a pastel green that you find rather comforting after the unrelieved whiteness of the corridors outside. In the center of the room a doughnut shaped sofa surrounds a large table which, from its translucent white surface. Scattered over the sofa are a number of cushions in colours that seem almost rebelliously bright.
It is the domed roof that leaves you gaping. Like the wall of the chamber in which you arrived, this roof is utterly transparent and exposed to the dark beauty of deep space. Even the second time the sweeping view is breathtaking. Above you, where you feel instinctively stars should be, on the other hand, the vista is less disorientating and you are able to appreciate it more for its aesthetic merits. It takes a long moment before you can draw your eyes away from it.
"Mike?" Stephen shouts, although you can already feel another mind nearby and the fact that it has detected you.
Eight or nine doors open from this central hub and it is through one of these that a young man with dark hair and very blue eyes comes out to greet you both. He offers Stephen a grin and then offers you a hand.
"Hello, Jay." He says with a reassuring London accent. He's probably not more than a couple of years older than you but he carries himself with a kind of cheerful self-confidence that makes him look older. You find yourself grinning back automatically. As you shake his hand you get a vague feel of the mind behind it, enough to identify him and recognise his curiosity about you. He also gives a slight bow as your hands touch and you find yourself responding in kind.
"Hello." You say, a little awkwardly.
Stephen sits down on the sofa with a sigh and as he does so a part of one wall lights up with a display of text and numbers scrolling past so quickly you can't really follow it. He scans it for a few moments before turning back to you and the other boy.
"You've made quite a splash already, Jay. People are asking how someone from Earth managed to intercept a jaunting beam."
Mike shrugs, clearly seeing your bafflement, and joins Stephen on the sofa, indicating that you should do the same.
"Don't worry about it, Jay. You dont know what this place is like yet. No one will even log a formal protest. We get six months of discussion between any actual decisions or events. It even needs a discussion before they'd decide to make a cup of tea!"
Stephen raises a smug eyebrow.
"Is that an offer?" He asks as Mike realises his mistake. "How do you take yours, Jay?"
"White, please." You tell them, smiling despite yourself as Mike takes the teasing in good part. After all, his comment had been tantamount to volunteering.
Mike stands and goes through one of the doors, leaving it ajar so you can see what is evidently a kitchen inside.
"Mike's tea is pretty abysmal," Stephen tells you in a confidential tone, "But it's better than what they serve in the common eating areas up here. At least Mike remembers to warm the pot occasionally."
You find yourself relaxing and realise that that was probably what Stephen and Mike were aiming for in the first place. Mike returns with a tray bearing a teapot, milk jug and three mugs, He puts it down on the link table with a clatter.
"If it's so bad, Stephen, perhaps you should make your own! So, Jay," He adds as he begins to pour the tea for all three of you anyway, "Do you want to talk about it?"
You shrug, surprised by his direct approach.
"I...I don't know where to begin. There was an explosion. I had to try and stop it. The others would have been hurt." You stop, your eyes widening in alarm at the memories. "The others! Adam, Kevin, Megabyte and his Dad? Where are they, what happened to them?"
Stephen and Mike exchange confused looks.
"Jay, we don't know anyone with those names." Stephen tels you quietly.
"But you're Tomorrow People!"
Again the two older men exchange startled and confused looks.
"When did you breakout, Jay?" Mike asks intently.
"Well, today I guess. I've been getting the headaches for weeks and everyone said I should have broken out ages ago but I only rally found out today."
"That explains why your mental barriers are so shaky. Do you know how to control a jaunt?" Stephen asks.
"Jaunt?"
"Move from one place to another, like you did to get here." The older man explains. You think for a moment, remembering how Kevin and the others teleported. You feel the familiar electricity erupt around you and then you're suddenly standing on the other side of the room, still hearing the fading echos of the clap of air that accompanies the process.
Both Stephen and Mike are reaching for you with suddenly frightened thoughts and they swing around in their chairs to face you as they feel your presence.
"I didn't mean for you to actually do it!" Stephen exclaims, "Jaunting up here is dangerous unless you know what you're doing. We're too close to open vaccuum."
Mike, on the other hand seems to have other concerns.
[Stephen, what was that?] You hear him think. [I've never seen anyone jaunt like that!]
[It's the only way I know!] Your thought is little more than a wail and Mike winces at the volume.
"Calm down, both of you." Stephen snaps, frowning. He takes a deep breath to calm himself. "Jay, Mike and I don't jaunt in the same way you do. I'm starting to think that there are a lot of things we don't do the same. You keep mentioning these others and you seem to think they're in trouble. Perhaps you'd better show us what happened to you." He gestures for you to rejoin him and Mike on the sofa. Mike sweeps an arm across the white table surface, brushing a pile of magazines onto the floor. "This is a link table, Jay." Stephen explains. "It makes it easier for us to connect our minds to one another properly. Will you link with us and show us what happened to you?"
You nod, cautiously, and follow the other men's example in placing your hands, fingertip to fingertip with theirs, on the smooth surface. A soft white light spills from between your fingers and to your surprise it blends and merges with a blue light flooding from your hands themselves. As it does so you feel Mike's mind and Stephen's merging gently with yours. You feel their pleasure at finding another Tomorrow Person, you feel their confusion about the manner in which you were found. You know at once that there are others, that Stephen and Mike are just two of a group and that they're both sorry to be so far from their home and proud to be representing it. There are no words in that communication, only knowledge. At the same time you know that the others are feeling your confusion and weariness. You know that they feel the samme panic you do at the memory of the explosion that embraced you and pushed you to this peculiar place.
[Show us, Jay] Stephen says quietly, [Show us from the beggining.]
So you show them the headaches and the tests you had to endure. You show them Kevin in the park and the men in suits who attacked you. You show them Adam and Megabyte and General Damon. You show them the Research Institute and the device that almost killed you.
When the link breaks the smiles are gone from the faces of Stephen and Mike.
"None of that made sense." Mike complains. "How could an organised group of Tomorrow People like that exist without John and TIM and the others on Earth knowing about it?"
"I'm more bothered by how a government sponsored organisation like that could exist. John spoke to the Prime Minister when she was elected and we always keep a close watch on that kind of thing. And there was something that just felt wrong about all those images. I can't imagine Saps having that kind of equipment. Even those cars didn't look normal."
You felt that in the link. You felt the others react to things that seemed perfectly normal to you and that reaction confused you. There is something, well, old fashioned about their attitudes. You replay Stephen's words in your mind, startled that anyone of the Tomorrow People would risk talking to the Prime Minister.
"Hold on." You say, a little uneasily. "She? The Prime Minister is a woman?"
Stephen gives you a blank look.
"Well, yes. We're a little behind on the news from Earth up here, Jay, but not that far behind."
"How about five or six years?" You ask. "Maggie Thatcher went at least that long ago."
Mike looks at you baffled but Stephen's eyes are opening wide with the first hints of comprehension.
"What's the date, Jay?"
"The twenty-second or twenty-third of July," You tell him frowning. "Why?"
"What's the year?"
Now your own eyes widen as you realise what he's implying.
"1996."
*****
Stephen leaves you and Mike pretty abruptly after that. There are people he needs to speak to, he says, and you can see that he's worried. He tells Mike to make you comfortable. For a while at least it seems that you'll be staying with these other Tomorrow People here on the Trig. It's strange to look at the young man in front of you and know that he's almost old enough to be your father. It's stranger still to know that he and his kind must have vanished from Earth long before what you're still thinking of as 'now'. It worries him too, but Mike is putting a brave face on it. Stephen told you both a little about the time lanes before he left. Perhaps you are simply from a parallel time lane to these people, whatever that means. You've watched enough Star Trek and ST:TNG to have a fair idea.
"So what do you think of the Trig?" Mike asks after a while, glancing upwards at the midnight black of the star dome above you. "I guess from the way you're acting that there aren't any big space stations, even in 1996."
"It's all very...impressive."
"And overwhelming." Mike answers casually. "My first few days here, I spent with my mouth hanging permanently open. And he'd had more than a year to get used to the idea. Don't worry about dealing with it all at once."
"So you both live here? What about the others that you and Stephen talk about?" You ask, as much out of curiosity as to change the subject away from yourself.
"Welcome to the official residence of the Ambassador to the Galactic Federation of the Emergent World of Earth." Mike waves a vague hand around the large room and the suit of rooms opening from it. "It's an impressive title but there are millions of Ambassadors up here and all of them are from worlds more developed or important than Earth. I think we only rate rooms because Earth gets into alien trouble so often that they want a couple of us up here to pass on the news. Besides, the Trig is big enough to spare a few rooms for most worlds."
"Stephen's our Ambassador at the moment and I'm his deputy." He explains. "Most of the Saps still know nothing about us, of course, but at least we Tomorrow People can make sure our planet isn't completely overlooked. John and Elizabeth and Andrew and Hsui Tai still live on Earth. The others all have rooms here for when they're around but at the moment only Carol is on the Trig and she lives with her husband and the kids in his people's section. She's promised to pop in later to meet you."
"Where are all the others?" You ask trying fix all the names in your memory.
"Well," Mike tells you. "Kenny likes traveling around too much to settle down anywhere for long so he goes off on a whole series of diplomatic missions for Timus. Tyso has been helping Tikno with reintegrating the Vesh on Pyrie and Tricia is off on some hush hush project or other that we officially know nothing about. They all pop back here and down to Earth from time to time but only Stephen and I are resident at the moment. And now you, of course."
You frown and Mike gives you a questioning look.
"I don't know that I wan't to stay, Mike." You tell him quietly "My parents are going to be worried and so are the others. I have friends, Mike, I have a whole life to get back to." Mike nods sympathetically.
"I know. I can feel how worried you are."
You frown, worried by the lack of privacy that you feel.
"We have to keep our mental shields rather higher up here than the others do one Earth. Too many of our neighbours have very sensitive hearing."
You look from side to side in sudden anxiety but Mike calms you down.
"It's alright. There's a very low level psi-dampening field in all of the private suits. It wont stop us talking to each other or calling out if we focus but it does prevent stray thoughts from getting any further." The older man frowns. "We will have to work on your shielding pretty soon though, even while we try to find a way to get you home." He sighs and stands up. "Why don't you take the rest of the day easy and have a look at the Trig's public broadcast systems. It will give you a feel for what's going on around here and tomorrow I can take you for a real look round."
*****
As Mike suggests you spend the afternoon reading through largely incomprehensible newspapers and skimming some very odd television channels in order to try and get a feel for this place. Fortunately the computer systems on the Trig are intelligent enough to translate all the words to English before they get to you. Even if you are fifteen years in the past the computers here are far beyond any you've used before.
You manage to pick up perhaps two facts in that time. Firstly that the Trig is huge. There's as much going on here every day as there would be in an entire country on Earth. And secondly, most of what the people do here seems to be talking. The administrative newsletters list literally thousands of small meetings and conferences going on every day. Each committee seems to report to another somewhere along the line and all of them are responsible to the massive and over-arching power of Overmind.
When Mike calls you out for your evening meal you are still feeling a little shell shocked but are starting to come to terms with the concept of this place.
"Doesn't the constant talking irritate you?" You ask impulsively. Mike gives you a slightly chagrinned look but it is another voice from the doorway who answers you.
"Catches on fast, doesn't he?" A west country accented voice observes with a wry note of humour. Stephen steps into the room behind the visitor but Mike seem almost as startled at the arrival of the blond haired young man as you are but then jumps up and rushes over to greet him.
"Tyso! We didn't know you were coming!"
"Ah now you see," Tyso says with a laugh. "That would be because I didn't tell you."
Mike rolls his eyes at you good humouredly as Tyso joins you around the circular table.
"I ran into Stephen talking with Timus." Tyso explains. "And he told me about our visitor here. Hello, Jay."
You smile a little hesitantly as Stephen comes in to join the two of you on the sofa.
"I notice you arrive just in time for dinner." Stephen raises an eyebrow to his old friend.
"And aren't you a fine one to talk? If I ever need to find you I just have to follow my nose to the nearest food." Tyso digs Stephen in the ribs with an elbow and then turns to you. "I'm Tyso, in case you hadn't guessed." Tyso smiles at you before continuing. "I'm just here overnight really. Timus has asked me to pop in on a settlement that he's keeping an eye on somewhere in the middle of nowhere. It should only take a day or two so I'm going tomorrow." He looks at you thoughtfully. "I was wondering if anyone wanted to come along for the trip? I know that all this is very new to you but it might help keep your mind off things while the boffins here on the Trig try to figure out where you've come from and how to get you back there."
Stephen looks at you too.
"It's up to you, Jay." He tells you. "Do you want to have a look at another planet or would you rather get to grips with the Trig first?"
Do you:
a) Go off with Tyso tomorrow?
b) Tour the Trig tomorrow?
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