"I wonder what we forgot," Lanya said, wishing she could remember something.
"We didn't forget anything! Not a thing! Let's get going now!" Virgil climbed in deliberately without a backward look. He was trying to impress her, Lanya knew.
The girl, feeling suddenly very small and afraid, glanced apprehensively at the metal hull of the ship, then lingeringly at the familiar landscape. Finally, setting her face into a mask of unflinching determination that successfully hid the palpitations of her heart, she climbed into the open port and sealed the lock.
In the tiny pressurized cabin, air-cushioned against acceleration, Virgil was already seated and watching the erratic instruments with absorbed interest. Lanya dropped into the cloud-like softness of her seat and snapped the safety straps securely, about her small body.
"I hope Muuck is watching," Virgil muttered under his breath. He turned to his sister. "You ready?"
She smiled sickishly.
They watched the hand sweep slowly across the chronometer and approach 0900. A steady vibration pulsed rhythmically throughout the hull.
"Are you sure you're ready?" Virgil asked, grinning bravely. "Here we go."
The scream of the jets was almost inaudible in the cabin. They floated with eerie slowness from the ground ... then rose faster and faster. Below, the details of the desert merged into a dull red haze. The horizon began to have a noticeable curvature, which became more and more pronounced. A thick, bunched mass of cloud flicked by in an instant.