He told himself he wasn't really scared just ... uncomfortable.

Doing this was all new to him, and he had no one to talk to express what he was really doing.

Not good at secrets, he acknowledged.

And there was this: How much did he really know about what had happened on Omega Nine?

How much had they told him-and how much would he have to find out?

Most important-how much didn't they tell him?

Pressed back into his seat, he took a shallow breath and looked at his porthole.

It's all normal. Everything's fine, he thought, feeling the SRV pick up even more speed.

And for God's sake, don't get roadsick, he told himself when a wave of salty nausea swept though his stomach.

The air in the SRV suddenly seemed too thin to breathe.

Rodriguez told himself he couldn't actually feel the atoms in his body rearranging themselves as the SRV shot up the ramp that seemingly ended in a wall of nothingness.

He tried not to think about the disastrous fall to the rocky desolate landscape of the planetoid below that was seconds away.

Next time, stay home, he vowed as he closed his eyes and tried to settle in his seat. Next time, send someone else.

Annie checked a screen to her right, which showed the terminal's air locks shutting behind the SRV.

There was no turning back now, and-at this speed-no stopping.

She pulled back on the wheel and felt the SRV pick up even more speed. The alloy wheels on the ramp surface made the vehicle shimmy like it might shake itself apart.

Some of the first-time passengers might not be enjoying this part, sitting helplessly in a vehicle that was screaming up a ramp that looked like it ended in nothing but a solid, black wall.

Stomachs must be lurching, to be sure. Vision distorted. The dimensions of the cabin shifting, twisting.

It only lasted for a short while, but with the space-time distortions, it felt like forever.

She hoped people remembered to use the bags in the pouches on the seat back in front of them if they needed to.

She turned to Jordan.

"Still okay on your end?"

"I'd tell you if it wasn't."

Less than a minute away.

Annie's hands tightened on the wheel.

She thought: This ... never gets old.

No way in hell ...

Sinjira moved her head from side to side, taking in the vastness of space on either side of the SRV. It was difficult to get a clear view of what was ahead, but that might be because the physics of Road travel were warping space, time, and gravity-at least, that's how she understood it.

Hers wasn't the first chip documenting a Road trip. Not by a long shot.

But with their destination the farthest outpost of Omega Nine-where along the way anything was possible-she wanted it to be the absolute best.

She wanted it to be-real.

When a chip was so good, that was the only word you could use. Not amazing, not fantastic. Real.

She leaned against the window so she caught a view of the ramp ahead. It ended abruptly, and she suddenly identified with that crazy-ass Seeker back there.

Accept it.

It's out of your control.

She kept her gaze fixed on the edge of the ramp, eager for what was going to happen next.

Even if she wasn't ready.

No one ever is their first time.

On the screen just below Annie's wheel, the clear image of the portal swirled like the storms on Jupiter or the mammoth flaring sunspots on the Earth's sun, changing colors, shape, pulsing as if a living, breathing thing.

Who knows?

Maybe it is.

The trickiest part of her job was about to happen.

On the screen, the SRV's nose entered the portal. For a timeless moment, the SRV seemed to stretch out to an infinite length. Straight ahead, through the cockpit window, the SRV headed-seemingly-into absolutely nothing.

Even the most seasoned captain couldn't help but be rocked by the feel and experience of this distortion of length, width, height, depth, and time.

A single moment that one poet described as a "fall into the dark backward."

It'll pass, Annie told herself as she watched her hands-looking strangely disconnected from her-run over the controls.

And then: speed.

It was as if the vehicle hit something that sent it rocketing even faster. There was no concussive sound. No display of light. And-thankfully-the rattling and the dimensional distortion stopped, as if the SRV was flying through space, which it was perfectly capable of doing.

Except it wasn't flying.

It had entered the Road.

And one look out the window gave an indication of how fast they were going. Long distended streaks of light flashed by. Amazing arrays of color suddenly appeared and winked out before the eye could fix, much less identify them.

Despite the sudden sensation of increased speed, it certainly didn't match what Annie or any of her passengers could see outside. Ahead, through the cockpit window, stars approached and flashed by, receding like strands of diamonds leaving spiraling contrails.

Whole systems-galaxies, even-shifted, spiraling in ways that would take thousands, if not millions, of years at anything approaching normal traveling speed.

Here, it all happened between breaths.

And below the vehicle was the Road itself.

A shimmering, multicolored ribbon, amazingly translucent and solid, distorting and warping everything as it stretched out ahead, curving, looping, circling as if laid out over hummocks, or perhaps dodging outcrops of rock of some landscape-only this landscape was the galaxy, if not the entire universe.

What was the Road actually navigating past?

What unseen cosmic forces did it cross or bend or ignore?

Maybe-crazy thought-it was alive, and it reacted to the ebb and flow of some ancient dance of space and time.

Was it, in fact, the "event horizon" that ringed black holes?

Annie smiled at her thoughts.

Outside of my pay bracket to figure that one out.

If Earth's best scientists didn't have a clue, what were her ideas worth?

Still-that was the thing about the Star Road-it made people wonder.

Even Jordan.

No matter who experienced it, who traveled it, they experienced: wonder, amazement, curiosity, passion.

And for some-more than the Road Authority would ever admit-fear.

"Nice entry," Jordan said, his expression flat ... unreadable as things returned to normal.

"Thanks. Thought it was pretty smooth myself..."

The crossover between the SRV hitting the Road after speeding up on the human-made ramp could be jarring. Especially with an inexperienced pilot. More than a few early tests sent vehicles flying off the Road, stranding them and their crew ... who knew where?

Dead?

Alive?

In this universe ... or some other dimension?

Ultimately, it didn't matter. They were never heard from again.

A screen centered above and between Annie and Jordan showed their relative position to the nearest star systems.

Still days away from having Omega Nine pop up-the end of the line for this trip.

But not the end of the Road.

Now, Annie could breathe.

Things were quiet now. She could just settle in, think about the trip ahead.

Their path well traveled, fully mapped.

That was important. The Road Authority estimated it had mapped a small section of what could very well be an infinite system connecting not only stars but galaxies.

Since the early days, they had explored a mere fraction of the Road using materials and machines unearthed on Pluto as models.

They used the ramp left by the Builders.

But who were they? The Builders?

And were they still out there?

More mysteries, and without more of the map, Omega Nine was the farthest point humans had gone.

And plenty far enough for me, Annie thought, considering it was more than halfway across the galaxy in a star-impoverished area of the Milky Way spiral arm scientists described as being "outside the Goldilocks Zone."

"Okay-going to check on the passengers."

"I've got the helm."

Annie smiled at his use of the word "helm" as she got up. She was still smiling as she unlocked the cockpit door and headed down the stairway to the passengers' cabin.

TWO.

ON THE ROAD.