Star Road by Matthew Costello, Rick Hautala Page B

concussive sound. No display of light. And—thankfully—the rattling and the dimensional distortion stopped, as if the SRV was flying through space, which it was perfectly capable of doing.
     
    Except it wasn’t flying.
     
    It had entered the Road.
     
    And one look out the window gave an indication of how fast they were going. Long distended streaks of light flashed by. Amazing arrays of color suddenly appeared and winked out before the eye could fix, much less identify them.
     
    Despite the sudden sensation of increased speed, it certainly didn’t match what Annie or any of her passengers could see outside. Ahead, through the cockpit window, stars approached and flashed by, receding like strands of diamonds leaving spiraling contrails.
     
    Whole systems—galaxies, even—shifted, spiraling in ways that would take thousands, if not millions, of years at anything approaching normal traveling speed.
     
    Here, it all happened between breaths.
     
    And below the vehicle was the Road itself.
     
    A shimmering, multicolored ribbon, amazingly translucent and solid, distorting and warping everything as it stretched out ahead, curving, looping, circling as if laid out over hummocks, or perhaps dodging outcrops of rock of some landscape—only this landscape was the galaxy, if not the entire universe.
     
    What was the Road actually navigating past?
     
    What unseen cosmic forces did it cross or bend or ignore?
     
    Maybe—crazy thought—it was alive, and it reacted to the ebb and flow of some ancient dance of space and time.
     
    Was it, in fact, the “event horizon” that ringed black holes?
     
    Annie smiled at her thoughts.
     
    Outside of my pay bracket to figure that one out.
     
    If Earth’s best scientists didn’t have a clue, what were her ideas worth?
     
    Still—that was the thing about the Star Road—it made people wonder.
     
    Even Jordan.
     
    No matter who experienced it, who traveled it, they experienced: wonder, amazement, curiosity, passion.
     
    And for some—more than the Road Authority would ever admit—fear.
     
    “Nice entry,” Jordan said, his expression flat... unreadable as things returned to normal.
     
    “Thanks. Thought it was pretty smooth myself...”
     
    The crossover between the SRV hitting the Road after speeding up on the human-made ramp could be jarring. Especially with an inexperienced pilot. More than a few early tests sent vehicles flying off the Road, stranding them and their crew ... who knew where?
     
    Dead?
     
    Alive?
     
    In this universe ... or some other dimension?
     
    Ultimately, it didn’t matter. They were never heard from again.
     
    A screen centered above and between Annie and Jordan showed their relative position to the nearest star systems.
     
    Still days away from having Omega Nine pop up—the end of the line for this trip.
     
    But not the end of the Road.
     
    ~ * ~
     
    Now, Annie could breathe.
     
    Things were quiet now. She could just settle in, think about the trip ahead.
     
    Their path well traveled, fully mapped.
     
    That was important. The Road Authority estimated it had mapped a small section of what could very well be an infinite system connecting not only stars but galaxies.
     
    Since the early days, they had explored a mere fraction of the Road using materials and machines unearthed on Pluto as models.
     
    They used the ramp left by the Builders.
     
    But who were they? The Builders?
     
    And were they still out there?
     
    More mysteries, and without more of the map, Omega Nine was the farthest point humans had gone.
     
    And plenty far enough for me, Annie thought, considering it was more than halfway across the galaxy in a star-impoverished area of the Milky Way spiral arm scientists described as being “outside the Goldilocks Zone.”
     
    “Okay—going to check on the passengers.”
     
    “I’ve got the helm.”
     
    Annie smiled at his use of the word “helm” as she got up. She was still smiling as she unlocked the