The Station, Part 38 cont.

I see another chamber, this one is unfamiliar, but what it contains is not. There is no mistake this time. No misidentification. It is Frontier. My Frontier. She stands upright, seemingly floating in space. A complex crisscross of silken strands supports her 300 meter frame. And she is still alive. Her green and red navigation lights blink on and off. Golden light from various ports spill into the chamber, causing some of the silk to glint as if bejeweled. The strands are not taut, leading me to believe that wherever she now resides, there is no gravity. Where is she then? If there is no gravity, is she still within this Whale? I’m thinking very hard, trying to visualize what I can’t see—the area below Frontier. The image shimmers and shifts, Frontier loses focus and in my perspective, she rises. I see below her now, just beyond her lowest deck. And what I see is blackness speckled with countless tiny points of light. Open space. She has access to the outside! And that means she can transmit an unblocked signal. But where is she? Where in hell is she?! Of course, the hologram! I see that one glowing point has replaced another. This one is near the bottom, far from the former. For all I know it could be hundreds if not thousands of kilometers away. But if she’s there, and my body sleeps far above, perhaps there is a way. After all, it means I must find the Tunnels Wide, the one that I know now to go down. And that would make for a much easier journey. I make several attempts to trace a path from where my sleeping body lies down to the bottommost chamber. It’s more difficult than I thought. In my excitement I lose my way. So many tunnels. I don’t know how much longer I will stay asleep. But I focus. I think so very hard about what I have seen here, committing all that I can to memory. I just need to remain asleep for a little longer…

No…I want to…stay asleep….stay asleep…

First Tunnel Wide for down, then Tunnel Round for horizontal, then a long Tunnel Wide, another Tunnel Wide, damn it; how am I going to recall all of this after I awaken? I can’t be frustrated, can’t let the distance make me lose hope. I will get to her. I will! Just keep following the path downward…

Tunnels…so many tunnels…so far to go…thought…was so close…

Hell, some kind of junction or hub about three fourths of the way down, hard to see around the intertwining of paths. But there’s a null point in the middle of all of it. A null point that is ovoid in shape. Is that where my dream self is now? Is that my crucial clue? I backtrack is oh carefully trace my way through the tangle, getting closer…

See it…see it…need to see the last pathway…