The Conclusion

SPARK GAP The conclusion is now available as a Kindle eBook

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SPARK GAP - Caught Between Worlds

SPARK GAP

- Caught Between Worlds -

A Science Fiction Novella

by Nik Alinaru

Is now available as an eBook
on Amazon.com as a Kindle.


Please purchase a copy today.

And stay tuned for more Adventure
with Larry DeVaryo and the Diegisis Series.

The last few steps...

The last few steps caught Centra off guard, Trega dropped away from her and a blast of wind lifted her off of Trega and out into the Voryon atmosphere.

She found herself flipping backwards. She kept her eyes open, ever intent that Fescha would be right and Buyukay would appear from shadow from behind Trega.

The vorion suns were going further and further behind Voryon, the daylight was beginning to fade away.

Centra could taste the little bit of sweet jelly still in her mouth.

She held out the handful of firegoop in hope that Fescha could see her.

Fascha couldn't keep an eye on Centra any longer, there wasn't enough light. He thought for a moment he saw a trail of light leaving Trega but couldn't be sure. He looked over at Patia. Patia was sketching this and that passing the time while Fescha observed, the best he could, of what was happening to Centra and her progress.

He wondered about Buyukab. All of the vorion moons were unknowns. He had made many guesses.

Streckna had flown in behind Buyukay to take advantage of the currents of wind it stirred as it moved. Streckna made it a point to not land on Buyukay.

Streckna was still looking for Centra. Streckna was able to see well into the night.

Sieffas turned and went back into his little moon and hopped into the water to swim back to his lair.

Centra was watching the trail...

Centra was watching the trail behind Kalroth, wondering what it was that made the trail.

She started feeling even more uneasy, She calmed herself. She had fallen from one moon to another, she said to herself this won't be any different, and gained her confidence.

Then Trega shifted and Centra could really feel it. The moon Trega started to change direction. Centra thought to herself, "this must be it."

She gathered herself together. Fescha had explained that Centra had some margin of error to work with, that Buyukay was very large and Centra will have time to adjust how she falls to get close enough to Buyukay to finally land on it one way or another.

Trega shifted again, this time with enough momentum that Centra felt her stomach flutter, it startled her. She looked out at Kalroth. Then back to Seeanka. In her mind she suddenly realized how it was all going to come together. She tasted one more bit of jelly, and then took a handfull of firegoop.

The two Voryon suns were about to disappear behind Voryon and pass all of what Centra could see into night.

She wanted the firegoop to see with. She knew she would be able to see Kalroth well enough.

She slapped the firegoop to light it, then she began her run holding the lit ball of fire out at arms length.

The great moon Buyukay...

The great moon Buyukay isn't round, it is longer than it is wide, and when it orbits Voryon it changes how it rotates. There are times when it is flipping end over end, there are other times when it spins along its center axis, much like someone tossing an American football.

Fescha had worked this part of Centra's journey with much deliberation. If Centra got to the right place before Buyukay passed into the Voryon atmosphere, Centra might be able to jump onto it, and then use its orbit to carry Centra to her final destination, either Seeanka or Kalroth.

Centra was watching for Buyukay. She wouldn't be able to see it until the last moment, and she was going to have to time her jump from the moon she was on, Trega, because Buyukay was going to come from behind Trega, where Centra couldn't see.

Fescha had explained this to Centra, when Seeanka is located here, and Kalroth here, and you feel Trega start to drop (because of Buyukay's gravity), then Centra will have to blindly make the jump between the two moons.

Fescha had thought about this for some time. There wasn't any way to rehearse this, Centra was going to have to feel it in her gut that Trega was somehow changing because of Buyukay's influence, and then make the running jump to break free of Trega, and then fall to Buyukay. Buyukay will then continue on, and move out past both Seeanka and Kalroth so Centra can then make another jump that will allow her to fall back toward Voryon, and on the way Seeanka and Kalroth will cross her path.

This will be the hard part as Fescha had no way to predict if Centra's fall will allow her to catch Seeanka and Kalroth, and that was because everything depended on how Buyukay entered the Voryon atmosphere. If Buyukay were flipping end over end, its orbit was different and the timing Centra needed may not occur. Fescha wanted Centra on Buyukay when the timing was right.

Centra started to wonder if the strange feeling that suddenly began was what Fescha was referring to. She had no way of knowing as no one had ever done this before.

Streckna was still flying about trying to catch sight of Centra.

There is nothing on Earth...

There is nothing on Earth quite like an earthquake, and for that matter, there is nothing quite like a volcano erupting for the first time after being dormant for a millenia.

As Larry started his crawl across the paved street, and the woman was now moving back towards Larry, they both heard the loud rumble from the ever deepening crater the malevolent globuloid in Larry's backyard was making.

The umbilical cord that was once the loose wire that had struck Larry in the abdomen, pulled taut as the hot globe sank even further. And then it broke away from the gaseous glassine bubble.

The reaction started with a rumble, then a deafening roar came up from underground and everything shook violently. The light coming up out of the hole lit up everything everywhere for miles.

Larry and the woman suddenly felt themselves compressed against the pavement, and as Larry looked to one side he realized the two of them were going upwards into the air.

"What is going on now?" he spoke to himself.

"What IS HAPPENING?" the woman yelled out loud at the top of her lungs.

The light around them was blinding, they both closed their eyes. Then they both opened their eyes as they realized that if they were going up, then they were also going to come down, and they both needed to be ready, if there was anything they could do about it.

The wind rushed by their faces. The light changed colors. The roar started to fade as they got further and further away.

Larry looked about, he could make out the tops of large apartment buildings and homes he knew were behind his house, he pondered their rooftops. Then he became aware that he could now see the intracoastal waterway.

"This is way too high." he said quietly.

They both thought to themselves, "We're going to die."

Streckna was flying...

Streckna was flying in the distance. Centra thought it might be possible to leap onto Streckna and have Streckna take her the rest of the way to Seeanka and Kalroth.

Streckna was still looking for Centra but didn't see her at the moment. Streckna was scanning everything for signs of Centra. "Where is the Vorion?" Streckna thought.

Centra gathered herself together for the last part of her effort to get to Seeanka and Kalroth. If not by Streckna, then she'd have to go from moon to moon again to get there.

Larry hunkered down to...

Larry hunkered down to take the weight off his feet and knees. He slumped over in pain. The woman got up and started looking at the ever-growing giant ball of gaseous sand and boiling salts.

She repeated her question: "What is that?"

Larry managed to answer, "I am not sure, but I think it is boiling silicon-dioxide with some dirt tossed in. You know what glass is right?

She nodded.

"Well this could also be glass as a gas."

"You're kidding?"

"Nope. Unfortunately my house is a high energy electrical lab and I think something I was doing may have caused this. It wasn't just me though, it started when the underground electric box in front of the house started spewing the most amazing array of sparks. I don't know when that was. I was hit by a loose wire and passed out." He pointed down with a nod of his head to show her he was bleeding at the waistline.

The woman wanted a better view of the dangerous globe, she started to move away so she could see better.

The hot ball started burrowing further into the ground. As it did so the electric wire it had joined with was being pulled taut as it was running out of extra length.

The ball had changed colors, turning a deep orange when it first connected with the wire, then expanding, then turning a wild cobalt blue, then red and blue, then, now, getting white hot.

It sank further. Larry started to move slowly away from the dome of destruction. He found himself at the curb to the street, and edged down into the street. The woman was peering around the corner of the house. A long snake of arc lightning flew off the ball doing an S turn vertically above the ball and then whipping around the ball in a giant circle, hitting the ground, hitting Larry's house, hitting all the houses all the way around it. The woman turned and headed back towards Larry.

"You're nuts," she said.

"I have my moments," he thought quietly to himself.

Kalroth was not from the Voryon system.

Kalroth was not from the Voryon system. Kalroth was from another place, another time, and it wasn't made by nature. It had passed near the Voryon system after the Wakkam event and had been caught by the Voryon system, an adoption of a moon, for a planet with several thousand moons.

Kalroth and Seeanka passed close to each other about the time a third moon from Voryon crossed both their paths. This changed the orbit of each moon, and thus brought about the pairing of Seeanka and Kalroth every three hundred years for the Dance of the Moons.

Kalroth had been made by another people. And they made it to do an important job, but that responsibility lies in the distant past. Kalroth, in Centra's time, put on a show for all of Voryon to see.

Kalroth was made up of two spheres, one inside the other, the smaller only just a 300th of a micron smaller. A perfect fit of one sphere inside another sphere. This allows for the Casimir effect to take place anywhere Kalroth goes. The Casimir effect pulls particles from the zero point energy of vacuum space, even in the Voryon atmosphere. Kalroth leaves these particles abundantly wherever it goes. Kalroth isn't just any moon.

When Seeanka and Kalroth dance, especially at night, Kalroth leaves a trail of light behind, an aura that can be seen all over Voryon, a trail of shimmering light, the tail of Kalroth. Sieffas and Streckna had sat together evenings during the dance and watched as Kalroth showed off its multi-color displays. It wasn't always the same, sometimes deep reds, sometimes deep greens, other times a cycling of colors. And even when the two Suns of Voryon were out, the tail of Kalroth can be seen, it is that bright.

Centra looked out to the distant moon. It was becoming visible during the day. And she looked the other way when she could to see Seeanka. She felt odd. She looked about and explained her uneasiness away telling herself it was because she was so high in the Voryon atmosphere, no Vorion had ever been where she was now.

She wondered about Patia, and Fescha, Pelly and Clarsa.

Her clothing was keeping her nice and warm.

"This isn't going to work...

"This isn't going to work," Larry said. "We've gotta get outa here."

"What's going on, what is that, how did this all get started?" The woman was trying her best to understand. Larry looked at her and then at the intensifying ball of energy. It was now feeding itself from the wire. It had rolled onto the wire and was now expanding.

"I don't have time to explain, just believe me when I say we have to get out of here or we have to find some way to protect ourselves. I think that thing is going to explode. If it explodes and we are here, we won't be afterwards."

The ball kept getting bigger, it was now twice its original size. It was starting to change colors. Intermittent bolts of electricity were coming off of it and striking the ground. This had the odd effect of making Larry's hair, and the woman's hair stand on end.

Larry's abdomen was bleeding. Not like before, he had moved so much the wound was completely open. His mind started to spin at everything happening at once. He pulled a large piece of scabby-like material off the wound, this actually made him feel a little better. He looked up at the blob of energy.
The bleeding accelerated. He patched the wound with more of his shirt wishing he could find something more antiseptic to bandage the area with.

The ball started to burn out a crater in the ground. A shot of lightning hit the side of the house Larry and the woman were next to. It scorched across the concrete block, paint flaking off in every direction. Larry and the woman huddled down closer to the ground as it peeled across the side of the house right above their heads.

"THIS IS TOO CLOSE," Larry shouted out. He rolled like a log, "C'mon, we've gotta run."

He managed to get up on his feet yowling in pain as he felt the bottoms of his feet touch ground for the first time since his sneakers were blown off by the wire striking him. Back down to his knees he fell. So much pain....

The woman pulled Larry further away.

The woman pulled Larry further away. Larry started looking around for some way to get protected from the creeping globe. He looked at his garden shed and said to himself it wouldn't do.

The ball lightning was sending out heat, sparks, when it pushed through the concrete wall it seared the concrete into a black dust that showered everywhere.

The wire was cackling and crackling, loud pops of electrical snaps, it was burning everything around it.

The ball sent off a bolt of lightning snaking wildy across everything near it while the globe itself was moving slowly, Larry pondered what it was about the electricity that was drawing the ball towards it.

The woman had Larry nearly to the back of the yard, she grabbed the bottom of the chain link fence and pulled up hard, breaking the rusted ties holding the fence to its upright posts. She rolled under it and pulled Larry with her. She got up on her two feet and dragged Larry across the neighbor's backyard and around the corner of the house.

Larry said, "Get DOWN." The emphasis in his voice had the woman dive to the ground.

The ball caught the open end of the electrical wire at that same moment.

Larry turned his head...

The glob of boiling silicon dioxide that was eating into Larry's house was churning away at its meal. It was heading toward the broken end of wire spewing high voltage electricity just a few feet away from where Larry was lying.

A woman that was jogging behind Larry's house on the next block, who was also heading towards the noise and commotion ran into the backyard of the house behind Larry's and peered over the fence. She saw the hot wire cooking everything around it and Larry on his side. She climbed over the fence by grabbing a branch of an overhead tree and swung over, ran over to Larry and sensing it might be dangerous to touch him, she wadded up her sweatshirt around her hands and then grabbed Larry by one of his legs and dragged him back toward the fence.

Larry lurched awake. By stretching him out the woman inadvertantly ripped open his wound on his lower stomach, Larry yelled out in pain.

"I'm moving you away from that wire." the woman answered to his yell.

Larry turned his head grabbing his abdomen at the same time trying to protect the wound, and saw the spewing wire, he also caught a glimpse of the globuloid chewing up his living room through the open back door.

Larry managed to blurt out, "We need to get further away."

The ball broke through the outer edge of the wall at the back of Larry's house.

"That's going to head for the wire, if it reaches it we have a real problem," Larry calculated out loud.

Large arcs of lightning struck out at the ball from the loose ends of the wires, each snap of light generating an enormous thunderclap.

Larry had read an article by National Geographic scientists about ball lightning, how they believed new physics might be involved. Larry was pondering the chemical make-up of what was in front of him.

'We need to get shielded from that as soon as possible," he commanded. His wound was leaking profusely, he wasn't thinking about the pain so much as what might happen if that ball and the wire touch each other. The woman kept dragging him.

There was a security guard that...

There was a security guard that worked the all night shift out for a walk further along the beach. He began to be aware of the commotion and started to head in that direction. Earlier, on his all night shift, he had accidentally pulled a sheet of paper out of a printer, and its sharp edge had cut him open. He didn't notice for quite sometime, papercuts being what they are, and then noticed when the small flap of skin was rolled backwards exposing the wound to the air, and then the pain that followed alerted him to his wounded finger.

Razors, the edges of paper, the edge of a tin can, tin can lids, knife edges, they all seem fairly sharp and ready to cut. The security guard thought about it, he remembered a time when, as a young boy, his brother was walking out the back door, a screen door, that at that moment in time had a plate glass window instead of screening. The door started to swing shut and he wanted to reach it before it closed, he was at the far end of the room, and ran as fast as he could, with his arm outstretched in order to stop the door from closing, his arm aimed right at the center of the large pane of glass.

His arm went right through the glass, all the way up to his shoulder, slicing his arm open in several places. The glass pane was now a huge gaping hole, with sharktooth-like remains. A kind of phantasm hole with edges asking you to try and move off center and get more of your arm sliced open.

As the security guard came back to the present he saw animals running, mostly dogs and cats on the ground, but birds in the air. As he rounded a corner a small gator crossed his path, and as he went a little further he came upon the gaping hole the malevolent globuloid had dug. He looked in, the gator stopped and looked in. The security guard backed up. The underground globuloid exploded.

The shards of boiling hot gaseous, liquified and solidified silicon dioxide glass moved outward in a perfect sphere of destruction, Since it was underground most of the shrapnel material went into the walls of the tunnel, the gator though, as the security guard had backed up and kept an eye on the gator at the same time, went through a transformation. It was just sitting there looking, then red liquid seeped out of its skin everywhere exposed to the hole. It slumped to the ground, not looking, not breathing.

The security guard realized whatever exploded had done something to the gator. The guard moved along further towards the larger commotion further away to see if he could help.

The police officer that had said "get it on video," was looking into another tunnel. The officer that was shooting the video was also looking into the tunnel. The guard realized what was about to happen, he yelled, "You gotta get away from that hole!"

The officers looked at him.

"Why," they asked at the same time.

"Just do it," the guard yelled back. The officers looked at each other and backed away from the tunnel opening. A seagull flew in and across the hole just as the officers backed up and the glowing hot mass underground detonated.

The seagull fell out of the air, down into the shaft, its white feathers a sullen red, the bird suddenly limp in flight.

Larry started to awaken...

Larry started to awaken, he was aware of the odors on the air, and that he was breathing them in. He turned onto his side holding his gut through the pain. He wasn't sure what to do. The wire that had hit him was lying a few feet away spewing sparks as it actively bobbed in and out of the grass and sand. He decided he was going to go the other way. He started to move his knees and shoulders in a kind of caterpillar action, slowly making his way back to the back door of his house. He looked in from where he was laying on the ground. He could see out his front window and could hear all of the commotion out front.

He looked down at his belly and started to pull encrusted shirt fabric, his leather belt, and pieces of toasted skin off of himself. He exposed a little too much and felt another scream of pain race through him forcing him to freeze himself, if he arched from the pain it made it worse, tearing open more baked skin, he started to shake violently from the excruciating pain. He forced himself still. He breathed. "I have to exercise control." It wasn't coming easily. Thinking through convulsive reactions he put his hand over the spot he exposed and held it there, hoping somehow this would cool the pain and help make it go away.

He looked around, he had tears pouring off his face. He used his shoulder to dry his face off. He pulled along the ground up onto the flat porch at the back of the house, he was looking about, "I must be about to pass out, " as everything in his vision started turning white. His head went light, he slumped over and his body relaxed from unconsciousness.

A globe started back towards Larry's house, it began to eat away at the corner of the concrete block of the house. The corner of the roof started collapsing as it was being consumed by the intense heat. Larry was unaware of the danger. Blood was trickling ever so slightly out of the crusty cauterized area he had picked at.

The ball lightning was eating further into the corner of Larry's house, burning his entertainment center, heading closer and closer toward the back of the house, as if it hungered for Larry.

As more of the house collapsed the ball grew larger, all of the globes of abusive heat and molten glass all over the beach were swelling in size, the ones underground were lodging into place from swelling too much, it seemed as if some were beginning to finally cool off.

One of the hot spewing globes...

One of the hot spewing globes started to sink into the sand. As it did so it glazed the sand into glass creating a glass tunnel. It traveled further and further down. When it got 20 feet down it hit the underground aquifer and started to boil the underground saltwater. At the same time it was digging out the sand and tunneling further along, it hit a sinkhole and brought a house down with it, concrete block being singed into carbon, saltwater boiling into noxious vapor, hot silicon dioxide gases floating up and landing on surfaces, cooling to a sheen.

It hit another sinkhole which brought another house down and a car, the car melted, the gasoline ignited and blew parts of the car back up to the surface.

Larry was still oblivious to everything, the pain had sent him into shock.

Emergency services were beginning to arrive but as they approached they quickly figured out they had to back off and give this phenomenon space. The police didn't bother trying to shoot at the balls, they could tell they were so hot bullets weren't going to stop them.

"What do you do with something like this?" remarked one.

"Get it on video," said another.

Another sinkhole opened, palm trees fell in, the air took on the odor of burning wood, shingles, tar, and trails of gaseous glass streamed up from the holes here and there landing on whatever, burning a shadow of a brand where the hot, molten, amorphous liquid landed, and then turning into 2300 degree glass, fading from orange to white to clear.

Sparks flew off the bubbles and floating gaseous glass as dust landed on them and were instantly toasted.

More bubbles were created as they went further along in every direction, some nearly at the beach now. Cars were being diverted in every direction. Some of the ball lightning was following the high tension electric powerlines north and south. Some were still being cut in two as the lines came down, energizing the dangerous globuloids more and more, and cutting the balls in two and sending balls here and there. People were being evacuated, running from the whirling death globes.

Seeanka and Kalroth

Seeanka and Kalroth, there are songs about the dance these two moons do with each other every three hundred years.

Centra awoke and looked up to see...

Centra woke up and looked up to see Seeanka and Kalroth. Seeanka over on the farside of Voryon, barely discernible. Kalroth over here, small, faint, indistinct in the multi-colored light of the two Voryon suns.

Centra wondered what the moment would be like, to touch both moons at the same time. She hadn't said anything but that was her real intent. Everyone had been told she was going to explore and to get a closer view of Seeanka and Kalroth. Fescha knew better. He had figured she would go as far as she could once she was on her way. Why not make the best of it on the first try if you can he pondered.

Patia was drawing images of Centra between the moons, jumping from moon to moon. Centra was now known all the way around Voryon.
Centrahelion, the Voryon that touches the moons.
Centra pulled out some jelly and then looked up."So many pretty things."  Centra hoped Patia was drawing the Borii.

Fescha was pacing relentlessly about. He also was wondering about the two Voryon moons. He knew Centra would do as he speculated. Fescha hoped nothing unusual would take place and Centra would return safely.

The three hundred year dance of the moons was about to take place. 

Streckna passed away yonder. Centra wanted to know more about the Boristris. "Very graceful," she thought as she watched them fly. She thought about how she and Patia had been skating with Josta.

Claarsa and Pelly visited occasionally with Fescha to see how Centra was making out. "It won't be long now," came the reply. Clarrsa and Pelly decided to join the wait.

Centra was very far from Voryon now, so far that it was cold. She put on extra clothing, she had kept the outfit the underground vorions had given her. Very comfortable.