“Well, even though there are a lot of anomalies, they’re spaced pretty widely apart,” Y’lla said. “So the chances of running into one are actually quite slim.”
“It’s like the fictional science movies you humans make on Earth,” Rive said.
“You mean science fiction?” Penny asked, grinning.
“Yes, that.” He nodded. “Anyway, I have seen many of them and one of their worst inaccuracies is the way they portray asteroid fields. All of the human filmmakers seem to assume that the asteroids in any given field are all clumped together—like burra berries in a good shungu pie.”
“Whereas actually, they can be spaced so far apart you could fly through the entire asteroid field and never even see one—let alone a big clump of them,” Y’lla said, continuing her husband’s thought.
“Exactly, my love.” Rive gave her an affectionate smile and nuzzled her neck. Y’lla nuzzled him back and it appeared they were in danger of heading into a full-blown snuggle session.
Penny cleared her throat, to remind them of her presence. It was something she had learned to do early because the pair of them seemed on the verge of having passionate sex at any given moment.
“Just remind us you’re there, dear,” Y’lla had told her, on the first day of their journey when she and Rive had started making out in the middle of a conversation the three of them had been having. “We’re just really close because of our soul-bond. Well that and the fact that we don’t have any children. We do want some—but we’re not finished exploring the universe yet.”
Penny couldn’t help being a little envious of such a close connection—she’d certainly never experienced anything like it in the few relationships she’d had. Her last serious boyfriend, Garret, certainly hadn’t been nearly as affectionate as Rive was with Y’lla.
But she had written it off as a Kindred thing—something that simply wasn’t attainable for her, even if she had found the right guy—which she certainly wasn’t going to be doing in the middle of an interstellar dig.
She cleared her throat again, louder this time, and Rive and Y’lla pulled apart.
“Sorry, Penelope,” Commander Rive said, clearing his throat. “Er…what were we talking about?”
“The way temporal anomalies are spaced so widely apart that we’ll probably never run into one,” Penny reminded him. “Which makes me wonder again why we didn’t just fold space to right outside the orbit of Yown Beta instead of taking a week to fly to it. Not that spending time with you guys isn’t great,” she added quickly. “But it just seems like if there’s hardly any chance of hitting a time pocket—”
“Actually, the odds of landing in or near an anomaly while folding space into the Yown System have been calculated at four million to one,” Y’lla said.
“But that’s less than the odds of getting struck by lightning back on Earth,” Penny protested. “It’s even less than the odds of winning the lottery! So why not risk it?”
“You wouldn’t ask that if you’d ever seen someone who was trapped in a temporal anomaly,” Rive said seriously. “Because even though the odds are against it, it does happen.” He looked at his wife. “Remember Duk’las?”
“Oh yes—the poor male!” She shook her head sadly and buried her head in Rive’s broad shoulder. He stroked her hair comfortingly and kissed her cheek.
“Who was Duk’las and what happened to him?” Penny asked quickly, before the two of them could start going at it again. Honestly, they were really nice people but it was kind of annoying how quickly they forgot someone else was in the room and went into love-making mode!
“Oh, he was a young man we met on our travels—one of our guides on a previous expedition,” Rivas explained.
“His people were humanoid,” Y’lla added. “In fact, he looked like he could have come from Earth—well, except for his bright yellow eyes. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a human with yellow eyes. Have you, my darling?” she asked Rivas.
He shook his head.
“No. But other than that, he looked like a healthy young man when we first met him.”
“But then, when we saw him a year later, he had changed completely,” Y’lla said. “The poor dear had long gray hair and his lovely yellow eyes were nearly brown with age. His body was twisted and his hands were just arthritic claws. Oh, it’s almost too awful to talk about!” She buried her head in Rive’s shoulder again.
“He went through an anomaly?” Penny guessed.
“Yes—he went through a quick-time one.” Rive nodded, being careful not to dislodge his wife who was curled against him.
“It aged him eighty years in a second!” Y’lla said, looking up. “He was little more than a boy when we first met him and an old man, near death, the next time we met.”
“That’s awful.” Penny had to admit she felt shaken by the story. “But what happens if you end up in a, uh, slow-time anomaly?”
“Well, it depends on how slow it is. It might make your hour last a day or your day last a week or your week last a whole solar year,” Rive said thoughtfully. “I had heard of something like that happening to another traveler who was unfortunate enough to fly through a slow-time pocket. He said it felt like he was trapped in one spot for years and in fact, he was. When the anomaly finally passed through his ship—or his ship passed through it, whichever you like—he found out that twenty solar years had gone by on his home planet.”
“All his children were grown up and his mate had joined with someone else, thinking he was dead.” Y’lla shivered. “Just imagine—how awful!”
“Being stuck in one place for years or losing your entire family?” Penny asked. “Though I guess both would be pretty terrible.”
“Exactly. Which is why we’re so careful about our approach to Yown Beta,” Rive remarked. “No matter how low the odds are, we don’t want to risk flying through any anomalies.”
“I understand now.” Penny nodded. “Thank you for explaining it to me.”
“No problem, Penelope.” Rive and Y’lla both smiled at her. “We know how primitive Earth technology is and that your people haven’t had a chance to get much interstellar experience yet,” Y’lla said.
“Which is one reason I was so eager to go on this mission,” Penny said, smiling at them, though Y’lla’s words about Earth tech being “primitive” were a bit galling. Though she supposed it was true if you compared Earth tech to the Kindred’s advanced science.
“Well, we’re glad to have you,” Y’lla remarked. “Especially with your expertise in dealing with stone artifacts. Why, you know—”
“There it is—Yown Beta!” Rive interrupted his wife, pointing excitedly at a gray speck on the viewscreen.
“Really?” Penny squinted at the screen. “What’s that one, then?” she asked, pointing at another, greenish speck far from the gray one.
“Oh, that’s Yown Alpha,” Rive explained. “Yown Beta’s sister planet. They have almost the exact same mass and composition but they’re located at opposite ends of the habitable zone for this solar system.”