Page 37 of A World Enough

“Yes.” Camber’s fingers danced across the controls.

“Do you need your map?” Brogan asked.

“If it was one of the other hidden portals I would, but the direction to this one is in my head because I use it for escape so often.”

Brogan felt the ship move, and then they were in darkness, with no stars for maybe thirty seconds, then different coloured lights shot past them at high speed.

“Do we have to travel in normal space after we get out of this portal?” Brogan asked.

“No. We’ll arrive at where we’re going straight away. It’s a moon where travellers and people just looking for a good time go. There are hotels, gambling establishments, bars, nightclubs, the perfect place for people to hide.”

“And your contact works there?” Brogan asked.

“She owns the moon.”

Brogan raised her eyebrows. “Okay, well, that’s good.”

“Yeah, she looks out for me.”

Brogan said, “Really?” with more harshness than she meant.

“Yeah, it’ll give us a chance to rest, breathe, and keep under the radar after what happened on Oipra, but we need to change skin first.”

“Change skin?”

“Change the appearance of the ship. The last thing we need is to arrive at the moon looking like Abnobians doing a search.”

“Is it like a cloaking device? That’s what spaceships have in our science fiction.”

Camber shook her head. “We live in science fact here, so programmable matter makes a skin over the ship, and we can change its appearance.”

“I’m surprised the Abnobians allow that,” Brogan said.

“Oh, they don’t for other ships, but we’re on one of their ships. Plus it has been known for the tech to be shared illegally with anyone who wants it.”

“I’ll need to show you some of our sci-fi films. You’d probably laugh at them, considering everything you have.”

“Sounds like fun. A story is a story—you always have good and evil fighting against each other. Isn’t that true?” Camber asked.

“Yes, they are just human stories set in space.”

Brogan watched Camber sweep her hand over the controls. “Now we look like a simple trader ship.”

“This realm is astonishing,” Brogan said.

“Do people on your Earth think werewolves are astonishing?”

“Those who know about us do, but we keep our world secret. There are many more humans on Earth than paranormals, and it’s been feared if our existence was known, we would be used by some of the worst elements in the human population,” Brogan said.

“Really?” Camber said with surprise. “You really live apart from them?”

“Together but hidden. We only show part of ourselves.”

“Must be hard to live in a closet like that,” Camber said.

“I hadn’t really thought of it that way.”

Brogan tried to imagine Earth open and accepting of all people’s differences. It was hard to picture wolves in full pelt running through the villages and towns of Ireland, Wales, Scotland, England, and America.