She slid the shower doors open, and was confused to see that there was no showerhead or controls.
“How the heck do you work this thing?” she said aloud. She was quite surprised when a soft voice answered back.
“Please enter the shower enclosure.”
“Um, what?” Hannah looked around, but there was no one else in the room, obviously.
“Please enter the shower enclosure,” the voice said again.
“I got that part. But … who are you?”
“I am this ship’s AI unit.”
“AI? You mean artificial intelligence?”
“That is correct.”
Wow. Sa’Zhan’s technology was really, truly advanced. Hannah felt a little weird, knowing a computer was aware of her every move on the ship. Then she realized she was being silly. It was only a computer, after all.
“Okay,” she said, getting into the shower, “now what?”
“The sonic shower functions automatically,” the AI said.
And then something odd started happening. There was a humming sound just at the edge of Hanna’s hearing. Her body began to tingle all over. It was almost like a static charge was running through her.
This lasted only a few seconds, and then a gust of warm air swirled around her. She stood there for several moments. She felt clean and refreshed. How awesome was the sonic shower?
Hannah returned to the sleeping alcove and snuggled in. Despite the crazy day she’d had, she fell asleep easily, and her dreams were peaceful.
The next morning, Sa’Zhan greeted her in the galley with a breakfast of pancakes, eggs and bacon. It was strange but oddly comforting how he always seemed to anticipate her needs. That was the telepathy at work, she supposed.
“So, what would you like to do today?” he asked her when they had finished eating.
“Um, I don’t know,” Hannah answered honestly. On a normal day, she might go for a walk after breakfast, or catch up on her reading. But this was definitely not a normal day.
“Well, then, I have an idea. Come with me.”
Sa’Zhan took her to the bridge. It was a truly awe-inspiring sight. A viewscreen at least twice as big as the one she’d seen in the main cabin took up the curved front wall of the room.
All around the bridge, there were flashing lights and smaller viewscreens at individual stations. Moving pictures appeared on most of these screens. Hannah moved closer to one and saw that it was showing programming from a cable news network.
Another appeared to be a live feed of some kind of military base, seen from above. Hannah wondered what the people of Earth would do if they knew an alien with this level of technology was here, and apparently monitoring them. Really freak out, probably.
Hannah wasn’t freaked out. She was excited. And she got even more excited when Sa’Zhan told her what his idea was.
“How would you like to see a black hole?” he asked.
“Is that even possible? I thought black holes were super dangerous to be close to.”
“They are. But we will not get too close, I promise. Your safety is always the most important thing. I will protect you.”
The words, the way he said them with such passion, made Hannah’s heart beat a little faster.
She smiled. Sa’Zhan directed her to have a seat at one of the control stations.
“Please do not touch anything,” he said.
“I won’t,” Hannah promised, and she meant it. The last thing she wanted was to push some random button and send them spiraling into the heart of a black hole.
Sa’Zhan took a seat at a console directly in front of the viewscreen, just a few feet away from Hannah. He adjusted some controls, then said, “Prepare for spatial transition.”
The soft voice Hannah had heard in the bathroom answered. “Ready for spatial transition.”
“Confirm transit coordinates for research site 9F19,” Sa’Zhan told the ship.
“Coordinates locked in.”
“Begin transit.”
Hannah didn’t know what to expect, but there was virtually no sensation at all. Certainly she couldn’t tell that they were moving. But Sa’Zhan worked at the controls, monitoring a screen at his station and communicating with the ship’s AI. Apparently they were going somewhere.
Hannah tried watching the big viewscreen, but it showed nothing but lines of colored light, sweeping past the edges. Looking at it made her feel a bit nauseous, so she turned her head to watch Sa’Zhan instead.
His every movement was completely assured. His face had a kind of casual intensity to it; what he was doing was important, she realized, but he’d done it many times. He was totally in control.
There was a slight vibration throughout the ship then and Sa’Zhan turned to her.
“We are here,” he said.
He pushed a button on the control panel and Hannah saw the viewscreen change.
She was looking at a black hole, she realized. An honest to goodness black hole!