Parsec to Earth
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Aloys looked at Jessica thoughtfully and nodded slowly.
– I understand you, Jess. This work does not always bring joy and satisfaction. And if you are confident in your abilities and your passion for writing, then you should pursue your dream.
– Thank you, Aloys. Your understanding means a lot to me. And I know that the decision to leave this place is the right move for me, although I may regret leaving my job after a while and losing the income that I would have received if I had worked for a fixed job, small but guaranteed.
John smiled and shrugged.
– I wish you nothing but success, Jess. I am sure that you will become a great writer, and your stories will inspire many. Good luck in your creative journey!
Jessica smiled, a sign of Aloyse's understanding and support warming her heart.
– Thank you, John. I also hope that our paths will cross again in the future, – she smiled coquettishly.
Aloys went outside, where the sun was less hot and the wind was coming in from the bay. He stood up and silently looked towards the river port and then up at the sky. Everything that had happened in his life before was completely unrelated to what he had planned, or rather planned.
He spent three years assembling a teleporter in his garage, and once, accidentally directing a beam at a neighbor's garage, he even sent it somewhere. The police came to investigate the theft, but they couldn't find any evidence, so the case was quickly closed.
The investigators also went to his garage, but apart from strange devices with wires, they saw nothing and quickly left.
– Tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow…, – said Alois quite loudly as he saw a girl in a beautiful dress passing by.
– Do I know you? – Hearing his words, the girl asked, slowing her pace slightly.
Without replying, Alois got into his car,which was no different from the others, except that the bodywork was slightly dented in several places and there was rust on the hood. But he had spent all the weekends of the last few years on his spacecraft, trying to fly to the first planet outside the solar system and quickly get back to Earth.
He did not want to stay on other planets, he did not understand at all those who wanted to fly to other planets forever, leaving all their relatives and friends here. Flying, or, more precisely, moving through space with the help of his teleporter, interested him as a scientific event, rather than just a tourist trip.
The idea was quite simple. Charge the device through a plasma generator, accumulate enough energy to overcome the light barrier in flight. Drop the flag with the license plate of his car from the ballast, and then use a powerful telescope to find him from the ground, announce that he was there.
The whole event was supposed to take a couple of Earth days. And Aloyz planned to return to work early next week, but he might be late at most. But, given his high position in the company, his absence from work for a couple of hours would not have been noticed by anyone, because he never held personal receptions and conducted all business through an electronic secretary.
He wasn't going to take any food with him, because he was on a diet, and secondly, he just didn't have time to make a full bathroom in the cabin, although he took water and a package of chocolates with him.
The entire flight was supposed to take five minutes, Earth time, and ten hours of preparation to wait for the convenient location of the Earth side to teleport to a nearby planet that he had selected from the astronomical reference book. There was nothing to breathe, but the main thing was that the temperature was almost earth-like, so there was no need for extreme materials for the body of the teleportation device.
To protect himself from the aliens, he took his own annihilator. Taking a deep breath, he wheeled his phone out of the garage and closed it. It was already dark, and the stars were beckoning.
Sitting down behind the chair, he closed the cockpit light and began to fasten himself to the seats, but when he accidentally touched the launch lever of the quantum accelerator with his elbow, the engine began to grunt, and the picture changed to darkness, which after a while he felt that the device had landed on some metal. It was pitch-black, and you couldn't see anything but the same stars, but with different brightnesses, and here they were more grouped around a single spot.
– It's a nebula, okay, but I don't know where I am, I guess I should go back, there are no aliens.
Alois remembered that he had forgotten his camera to shoot, but he remembered to drop the flag on the surface of the planet, which he did with a simple push of a button.
The control for the return involved a reverse inversion by means of a lever latch in the opposite direction.
– Time to go home, – he muttered to himself.
A moment later, he was indeed in the place of his garage on the outskirts of the city, but he felt that he had landed on something high. After making sure that the gas analyzer for the outer atmosphere was turned on, Alois made sure that it was Earth, and opened the cockpit light. I took a breath of fresh air and got up, but I couldn't get down right away. He couldn't think of anything else to do but just jump down from the height. He succeeded, but he fell a little on his left side and closed his eyes a little from the slight pain he experienced.
When he opened his eyes, he found that what he had "landed" on had actually come with him, it was the garage of a neighbor who had disappeared after being accidentally annihilated.
– And how will I explain this event to my neighbor? Okay, I'll figure something out, but the flag never came back, it got stuck between the roof of the neighbor's garage and the teleporter, " Alois said almost aloud to himself.
He placed the teleporter in the garage in "home" mode, but the neighbor's garage remained standing crookedly in the middle of the road.
– If anything, I wasn't here, – the homegrown astronaut thought, and got into his old car and drove home.
He got to work on time, even managed to sleep at home.
From work, he called Jessica, who had recently quit and wanted to become a writer. He told her everything as it was, but she laughed and said that she would probably start her literary work with a fantasy novel, although she was going to start with romance novels. Alois had never felt so funny, he wanted to fly through space with a teleporter, then tell and prove his flight with the flag and marry Jess. As a result, she laughed at him, and the neighbor will also try for a long time to find out the reason why his garage first disappeared, then appeared, while he saw him Aloyza often in the garage, and he will definitely pry him. – I haven't been anywhere, I haven't seen anyone, that's all! – I said aloud this time and, getting into my old car, after work, I drove towards the river port in the hope of meeting a girl.