Zeo Genesis Travelogues
Greetings, star-nomads! You can call me Trev. (You can also call me Trevallion Franklin-Ridgeway III, but I’d rather you didn’t.) I’ve left behind my shallow executive existence to explore the Hundred Suns, to re-connect with insignificant voiders just like you. These are my travels. You’re welcome.
“Gazing across the galaxy, star clusters beckoning, a wealth of worlds rich with wonder and peril. Was this how the colony fleets felt when they abandoned Earth thousands of years ago? In many ways, my journey will be fraught with even greater uncertainty, as I’m not entirely sure how to pilot a void-yacht. Father let me steer once when I was six, so it can’t be that difficult…
“Undeterred, I pace the pilot’s cabin, on my second bottle of wine, planning my forthcoming travels through the vastness of space. Having left behind a life of privilege in the stratohabs of McKinley’s Landing, I shall journey to the furthest reaches of the Hundred Suns, documenting my attempts to reconnect with my fellow voiders, to explore the wonders of our shared galaxy, and to really – and I mean, really – annoy Father!
“I’ve spent the last hour studying the Yasuhiro Projection. This must be an antique version, as there are several heliospheres yet to be charted. Oh, how readily the galaxy withholds its mysteries. If I recall my astrography lessons correctly, the first celestographers charted only half the heliospheres compromising what we now know to be the Hundred Suns. Take this heliospheric array, right here. Now, I know for a fact that… Oh, wait… Bloody thing’s upside-down.
“Haha! What need have travellers for maps, anyway? I shall chart my course by the stars themselves… My home-system of Odyssey’s End seems limitless, yet this heliosphere is only one of a hundred, each enclosed by an invisible barrier unknown to human physics, connected to its neighbours by a tenuous network of dimensional slipways. A galactic community; connected yet separate. That’s rather good… I might put that in a song or something. I’m almost certain I packed my vibro-lute…
[Bleep! Bleep!]
“Oh, it appears I’m entering restricted space, approaching an asteroid where they house one of those observatories that monitor traffic through the slipway. ‘Please re-set your course… Highest security-levels… Will not hesitate to open fire,’ blah, blah, blah… They only say that to put off tourists.
“I’m bound for fringe-space, anyway. Pretty much everything on the projection that’s flashing red. I crave the wild beauty of the ion storm, the deadly splendour of the meteor shower. I’ve been told to watch out for pirates, but I doubt they’d take much interest in a starwave-model void-yacht. It only cost 1.5 million zeobits and I’m pretty sure this bottle of red cost more than that.
“Maps. Hmph! You know they say the Yasuhiro Projection was never entirely accurate. Even our greatest mathematicians say the positions of the heliospheres and their slipways have somehow evaded all attempts to map them precisely. It’s rather like the universe has a mind of its own. I shall therefore trust cosmic will to guide my course through Astrapelago and beyond.
“Stay zippy, star-nomads…
“And if you’re ever in the market for a nice bottle of red, I’d thoroughly recommend the Monto Vallejo Adir Astra. I’ll let you know how I get on with the triple-filtered bourbon…”
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