The Last Days of Krypton - Kevin J. Anderson [5]
He shouted into the opening. “Can anyone hear me? Is anybody there?” The portal remained silent, a vacuum that drained all light and sound.
For his next test, Jor-El attached an imaging crystal lens to a telescoping rod that he removed from an unused piece of equipment stored against a wall of the research building. He would carefully extend the imaging crystal through the barrier, allow it to record the surroundings, then withdraw the tool. He would review the images and determine his next step. He would have to test the air, the temperature, the environment in that other universe.
Sooner or later, though, he knew he was destined to explore.
Holding his breath, Jor-El extended the telescoping rod and pushed the imaging crystal into the edge of the void with the slightest, most delicate touch.
Suddenly, as if a great wind had swallowed him whole, he found himself yanked to the other side, sucked through the opening along with the rod and the imaging crystal. In less than a heartbeat, he was nowhere, suspended in a black and empty void—adrift, yet more than adrift, for he could not feel his body. He sensed no gravity, no temperature, no light. He didn’t seem to be breathing, didn’t need to. He was just a floating entity, completely aware and yet completely detached from reality. As if through a dirty window, he caught a glimpse of his own universe.
But he could not get back there.
Jor-El shouted, then quickly realized that no one else could hear him in this whole strange dimension. He yelled again in vain. He tried to move but noticed no change whatsoever. He was lost here, so close to Krypton, yet infinitely far away.
CHAPTER 2
Working with her fellow apprentice artists around the wonderfully exotic structures, Lara couldn’t decide if the design of Jor-El’s estate was the result of genius or madness. Maybe the two things were too similar to be distinguishable.
Rao shone down on “light chimes,” ultrathin strips of metal dangling on fine wires that spun under the pressure of photons, producing a racket of rainbows. A milky-white corkscrew tower without doors or windows rose at the center of the estate, like the horn of a giant mythical beast, tapering to a sharp point at its apex. Other outbuildings were unique geometrical structures grown from hollowed crystals and covered with interesting botanical designs.
The bachelor scientist’s manor house was a sprawling labyrinth of arches and domes; interior walls met each other at irregular angles, intersecting in unexpected places. A visitor walking through the chaotic layout could easily become disoriented.
Though Jor-El spent most of his time in the cluttered research building, he had apparently realized that something was missing on the estate his father had left him. Chalk-white external walls of polished stone beckoned like pristine canvases that practically demanded artwork. To his credit, the great scientist had decided to do something about it, which was why he had called in a team of talented artists led by Lara’s famous parents, Ora and Lor-Van.
Lara wanted to make her own mark, apart from her parents. She was her own person, an adult, independent and filled with her own ideas. Given the chance, she imagined creating a distinctive showpiece that maybe even Jor-El himself would notice (if the handsome but enigmatic man ever bothered to emerge from his laboratory). One day Krypton would recognize her as an imaginative artist in her own right, but that wasn’t enough for her. Lara wanted to go beyond that, and she wouldn’t limit her possibilities. In addition to being an artist, she considered herself a creative storyteller, a historian, a poet, even a composer of opera tapestries that evoked the grandeur of Krypton’s never-ending Golden Age.
Her long hair fell in ringlets past her shoulders, each strand the color of spun amber. As an exercise, Lara had tried to paint a self-portrait (three times, in fact), but she never quite got the startling green eyes right, nor the pointed chin or the rosebud lips that curved upward in a frequent smile.