The Second Ship Read Online Free PDF

her lips as her entire body moved forward into darkness.
    Mark’s strong hand gripped her arm to steady her as her eyes struggled to adjust to the dim light. She was in some sort of large cave entrance. Looking back in the direction from which she had come, it was as if a mesh screen had been pulled down across the opening, leaving everything outside dimly seen, as if through a translucent film. Jennifer stood just beyond that screen, hesitating, unable to see what lay beyond no matter how hard or long she stared.
    “Jen, quit fooling around and come on in,” said Mark. “It’s not going to bite you.”
    Her mouth twisted. “Unlike you two, I prefer knowing what I’m getting into, especially when it appears to violate several known laws of physics.”
    “Jen, for Christ's sake. It’s just some sort of hologram.”
    “And that doesn’t set off any alarms in your brain?”
    Heather turned to look back into the cave again, and a gasp escaped her lips. “Oh my God!”
    A dim red glow illuminated the cavern, the sides of which appeared to have been carved by a massive impact. The texture of the stone looked like it had melted and flowed before solidifying again. It was roughly fifty feet wide and nearly as tall. However, it was not the melted rock that made her heart pound.
    At the back of the cavern rested a huge, saucer-shaped object. There was no longer any doubt about the source of the hologram or the soft red glow.
    “Jennifer, get your butt in here,�� Heather called without turning around.
    There was no adequate description for the scene before her. The smooth and graceful lines of the ship were clearly visible in the magenta glow, a glow as beautiful as it was otherworldly. Heather was not sure what it was about the lighting that left no shadows. There appeared to be no single source for the light, almost as if the illumination radiated from the air itself.
    “It’s beautiful,” she breathed.
    “Isn’t it?” Mark said. “When I fell through that opening, I just lay here for a couple of minutes trying to get my mind wrapped around it. I thought at first I was hallucinating.” He walked slowly toward the ship.
    Heather turned back to the entrance of the cave and saw Jennifer standing just inside, unable to move, unable to speak. Heather moved over and put her arm around her friend's shoulders, a broad smile on her face.
    “It’s all right, Jen. You can breathe now.”
    “My God, Heather. You know what this means? We must have stumbled into the restricted area where they’re storing the Rho Ship. We’re in big, big trouble.”
    Mark’s voice echoed in the cave. “No way. There’s nobody around, no security, no instruments. And look. The ship shown on TV was cylindrical. This ship is more like a jelly donut. Or a giant bagel without the hole.”
    “Must everything be food related with you?” Heather laughed, although it sounded nervous instead of mirthful in the empty confines of the cave.
    Mark had reached the closest edge of the spaceship, moving under the curved edge until he could run his hand over the surface. Heather followed him, anxious to feel the skin of the thing.
    She touched it and jerked her hand back as if she had received an electric shock. She hadn’t, but the feel was like nothing she could have expected.
    The ship just felt…wrong somehow. It was almost as if she hadn’t really touched anything, but that her hand suddenly wanted to go in another direction. It was like the repulsion she felt when she tried to touch the same poles of two magnets together. Slippery, or even frictionless, did not begin to describe the substance of the hull.
    As if reading her mind, Mark took a small coin from his pocket and tossed it against the ship. The coin ricocheted soundlessly off the hull.
    “I don’t really think it’s a good idea to go throwing things at it,” Jennifer said, moving up closer. “It clearly still has a working power source and technologies we can’t even begin to