Using the moment I felt was safe for me before my companion suspected, I used the zoom function in my eyes and took several photos that were immediately saved to memory. When I was alone during the night at the time sleep escaped, dragged away by the past, or complications of the present, I would examine their details and learn all I could about their content.
What I did know was no one would be exiting or entering through the archways without the ability to clear enormous stones out.
My companion tapped my shoulder. “Not a good idea.”
“What’s not?” I looked at him but he didn’t express anything.
“Standing around this place. I’ve been told since I was a boy that evil resides behind the wall and a great fight for survival caused the stairways to shatter and boulders were rolled into the center to block them from ever returning.”
That was more than he’d spoken since we started out. So I started walking, and memorized the location feeling quite sure that I had found a time portal, but to where and when I could only imagine. Perhaps it was, used by the ring world builders at some point during the beginning assembly of objects and people from earth. If that proved true then there must be many more like it throughout the ring.
Two hours later, I entered our apartment. Margaret was awake and cooking something that smelled terrific. I was famished and very happy to see her looking relaxed and as normal as she’d ever been since I met her.
Early morning I sat up carefully so Margaret didn’t wake and went into the living room. I sat lotus style on the floor where moonlight, or whatever substituted for it on a ring world, dropped a rectangular patch of silver-blue illumination.
When I was comfortable, I closed my eyes and began viewing the mental photos I’d shot with the macro nano chip in my eye. Using the tech the chip was configured with, I enlarged each, converted it to 3D, spun it and examined fine details. After I went though a dozen not seeing anything useful, the thirteenth showed a glimmer of light wedged between three boulders. That seemed to indicate the pile of stones jammed into the small arched door were perhaps not much more, if any more than what I could see.
Mentally zooming for a closer look, I jumped when I thought I saw a hand light by sunlight. Concentrating let me picture features. At once I knew the hand was feminine. The fingers were long, thinner than a male, and she wore flexible sheathed metallic finger guards around the first joint of her first finger, middle, and ring finger. Studying them, and wishing I’d shot photos of different angles, I suddenly recognized them as something an archer might wear, but why three fingers?
I will need to go back and hopefully collect a few more photos of the opening. If there is human activity behind the boulders can they, would they help Margaret and I escape this place?
Nothing else appeared in any shots to give me anything but a sensation of despair. Depending on an unknown, especially an unknown human might prove disastrous. Yet at the same time, she may be the key, and if the archway she stands behind is a portal, with her assistance Margaret and I might leave the section of the ring world we are stranded on. A place where petty human resentments, and greed, fear of the earth they left behind finding them here, drove them into islands controlled by the same type leaders that destroyed the livability of our home world.
I stood after doing several yoga stretches limber and ready for the day soon to be on us.
Back in bed, with Margaret’s body heat warming me, I dozed off.
It was the sun that drove me out of bed, padding into the kitchen where I located the necessities for breakfast. Watching pancakes while slab bacon sizzled in a pan of its own, I sipped black coffee from a wall dispenser.
I didn’t hear Margaret, and smiled as she wrapped her arms around me from behind. She leaned her head against my back, and greeted me.
“Morning to you,” I replied. “There’s plenty to eat here at least.” I collected plain white plates made from some alien ceramic, with knives and forks too, passed her one and watched as she mounded pancakes and bacon on hers.
Eating while sitting at a proper table with matching metal chairs cushioned with stuffed red cotton seats and backs, was nearly too much for me. So I studied Margaret while she ate fast as if she hesitated someone or thing would whisk the leftover away.
When she finished, she sat back and placed her hands on her stomach. “That should keep the two of us going until lunch.” She was looking down, and slowly her eyes lifted to see me. The way she looked gave me one of those gnawing feelings of attraction. I stood, went around to her, pulled her chair out, lifted her from it and carried her back into the bedroom.
Half an hour later, I showered, donned my uniform and kissed her lightly. “See you tonight.”
She smiled and nodded. “I hope no one bothers me today. I badly need rest and time to heal.”
“I’ll see they don’t,” I said not sure I could but would make the attempt.
When I was on the street, there was a carriage waiting. Hesitating, I walked slowly to its side and as I approached, the king leaned out.
“You will ride with my today. I must tend to the needs of people on the far side of my village.” He swung the door opened, and I climbed in, sat across from him and struggled to keep the grin from expressing my opinion of us riding in a horse drawn carriage. I knew of horses through history vids, but none survived into the twenty-third century due to failing food sources.
A pair of coachmen sat on an elevated seat in front of the carriage. One of them held a long whip and the other held the reins. As I got settled, the king reached out and slapped his hand on the door twice. After some calls to the horses, which I’d noticed before embarking, were both pure white, began trotting.